[Jeffrey @ Acclaimed Tax Services - Hamilton]

Users of Profile Premier on computers with Windows 7 have recently been experiencing an errorr message (something like C:\Program Files\Profile not accessible) when attempting to view the Profile classic database index (using the Database|Open command).

It appears that this problem is not caused by Profile. The issue is that Microsoft, in a recent Windows 7 “security update”, made the folder C:\Program Files\ un-writable (except for the installation and removal of program application files) by all Windows 7 computer users - even those with Administrator status. I suppose Microsoft’s objective is to stop people from accidentally altering program application files, or to prevent malicious programs. Microsoft did this for Windows 7, but not Windows XP, which is why Windows XP users are not experiencing this Profile database problem (I don’t know about Vista).

By default since its beginning, Profile has been locating its database index files in C:\Program Files\Profile\, which is now not allowed by Windows 7. So now Profile must use a different location to store database index files for computers using Windows 7 and likely for subsequent Windows versions.

Windows 7 has a new folder C:\ProgramData\, which it appears Microsoft created for any application data (including for Microsoft applications). My solution and suggestion is as follows:

1. Windows 7 users create a new folder C:\ProgramData\Profile\. If you don't know how to do this, please stop and get help!

2. Within Profile, make sure that under Options|Options Administration... the check box for "Prompt to Save Changes" is selected with a check mark (otherwise upon exiting Profile the changes you are about to make will not be saved)

3. Use Options|Database to change the folder location for every database index file for each module and year. Simply left-click within each line and repace "Program Files" with "ProgramData". For each, the new file location should be C:\ProgramData\Profile\[filename] where the filename is, for example, 2010T1DB.GDT

4. Use Database|Open (as if to open a tax file) which will initially show a blank list of client file names. Click on "Index" to build the new index file for the first time for each module (T1, T2, T3) and for each year. Enjoy!

5. When exiting Profile, be sure to click YES to save changes

Note: These changes will need to be done for each computer running Windows 7.

I hope this helps everyone experiencing this problem.

- Jeffrey

[Jo@Intuit]

Thank you for your post.
The issue you are describing has been reported and the ProFile development team is making a change to the software that will resolve it and improve future functionality. This will be updated in a future release of the software.

Until then, the workaround we are recommending is to run ProFile as administrator.
If you do choose to move the database files I would recommend moving them to C:\Users\”user name” \Documents\My ProFile Data\database\
The “user name” should be replaced with your login name without the quotation marks.

During installation, ProFile has already created a database folder in My ProFile Data. This location is writeable and can be shared easily if necessary.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact support.

Thank you

[Jeffrey @ Acclaimed Tax Services - Hamilton]

If there is more than one user on a computer, with different Windows 7 login usernames, then moving the Profile database index files to a C:\Users\"username"\... folder may not work. The other computer users may not have access to the one "My Documents" folder containing the Profile database index files.

I suggest not locating Profile database index files in a "Shared Documents" or "Public Documents" folder either, as this may create conflicts in a networked environment.

My solution above will work for multiple Profile users with different logins on a single computer, and whether each computer is a stand-alone computer or connected to a server.

[Jo@Intuit]

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear.

The issue you are having with the Database only occurs in a stand alone situation. (Single user, not a network).

My suggestion is to move the files to a location that already has a database folder by default, in it. In this scenario, the tax files are already present at this location. ie My ProFile Data\2010T1 etc.
If there are multiple users on the machine, ProFile would need access to these tax files for all users.
The best place for this is either the Public folder or by sharing the Documents folder for all users.

If the user decides to share ProFile on a network, then this scenario would make it easier for the User to set up.

I hope this clears it up for you.