Thank you, Ken. You are correct in that the second messages is hopefully a more visual representation of the first message. It attempts to show which file is sync linked to the AMT during the time line. Sometimes I think my instructions make it look more complicated than it actually is. Unfortunately the list is restricted to plain text messages so it can't be helped. I agree it is not a technique I would advocate for short term absences. Hopefully a future version will offer a better solution. Having said that, FTM 2012 allowed the user to recover a link to the AMT using a restored backup. But I think the FTM 2014 option is a great improvement over FTM 2012. Before FTM 2012, if you lost your file and restored from a backup copy, you lost your sync link to the AMT. That was one of the reasons, I didn't issue invitations to my AMT. It seems like I was always having a problem with my tree due to my using it to experiment. Also moving the file to a new hard disk or a new computer was a real pain. Now it really is a piece of cake. The nice thing about FTM 2014 is it stores a lot more data on the AMT. This data is not displayed or available in the AMT - so why store it, having that additional data allows the user to download the AMT to a new file on the computer. You have quite a bit of clean up but it is better than having to start all over. I recently experienced a problem with my hard disk and it corrupted my file to such an extent that I could not even load the file. While I had a backup of the file, I had made a considerable amount of changes to the file since the backup. I really hated losing all of those changes so I decided to download my AMT. I recovered the file with the changes. Unfortunately, due to the different methods of storing source-citation records and media files, I had quite a bit of cleanup to do. I'm still cleaning up my source-citations but am taking the time to revamp the way I document the source-citations and their linked media files. With about 2,000 source-citations, it has taken time and effort but I think in the long run it will be worth it. Thanks again for the kind words. BJ On 2/5/2014 10:22 AM, Ken Schroeder wrote: > Great instructions BJ. > > I was fine until your second message that laid out the sequential steps with desktop & laptop. I will study that a bit more. After my first read I concluded nothing in the first set of instructions was changed by the second set. Would you please confirm that? > > I do have to say for many novice users this will be a real hassle and a negative for using two computers. Fortunately, I've been around them since programming was performed by generating binary code and throwing switches for the 1s and 0s. My problem now is remembering, so I cut and pasted your instructions into a PDF file and will put them into my Companion Guide. > > Which reminds me, someone like you who always provides clear succinct instructions should write a book about some of the more advanced work arounds for users. Or FTM should contract someone to do that. I say contract it, because I would rather see them using their resources to advance the software. > > You and Russ have excellent grasps of the software's more subtle processes. No offense Russ, but BJ writes great instructions. >