saving/loading .dat file

we usually "save" after we make changes to the JAL.
and at the end of the changes, we "save as" to a file with the date in its name. e.g. 02062012-jobs.dat
this is usually all ok.
on a couple of occasions however, the next time we log on to the machine, we see that 24x7 has loaded a older .dat.
e.g. the last we did was 02062012, but its loaded the 02022012 version instead.
we think it may have happened after a reboot. or restarting 24x7.
where does 24x7 look for the dat file and in what order? is there anyway to force it to read 1 file from 1 fixed location always?

thanks

Hi,
This may happen after restarting if you are not running 24x7 in Run as Administrator mode. The current settings for Windows User Account Control (UAC) and registry/file virtualization allow Windows to virtualize user changes in files and registry and undo them after logoff. Note that 24x7 stores name of the last opened/saved DAT file in the registry, so if Windows reverts the registry values, on restart 24x7 may load a wrong file. One option is to disable UAC, the other is to always use Run as Administrator mode. A third more robust solution is to run 24x7 as a windows service, not in a graphical mode, use the web console to make changes in the jobs, and create a daily maintenance job that compares current job database file with a previous version (binary compare or just a date/time check), and if differences found, automatically creates a back-up copy of the current file using date-time as a suffix in the file name. Hope this helps.