where are MY files (EA. templates,..) ??
I am having the same issue.
I change the charts on the terminal - save the profile as any name even default. I close the terminal and reopen it....nothing everythings back to the way it was before i adjusted it.
My EA's are not in the directory they should be in...
The presets I make disappear
Everything disappears!
Where in the hell did everything go!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Roger - I had the same issue in XP and now with Vista...how I hate Vista....but I dont see any users\ directory anywhere...i tried looking under my name\ folder but couldnt find any AppData file...
Please help!
Hi,
unfortunately I have a acer notebook with vista ( I hope MS is heavily hit by this crisis!!) on which mt4 is running.
Now I wanted to save MT4 with my files (in order to update to mt4 220) but I cant't find MY files by vista?
Neither me nor me as root can see my EAs in the expert folder - all the others yes.
Even if I start the 'editor' and try to open any file (not only .txt) in the expert folder, none of miine are there.
Only the MetaTrader-editor show them to me.
So when I made a copy of the whole metatrader folder I am not sure that my files were copied as well.
It happend exctly this with firefox that e.g. the password files were not saved by the automated vista-backup
and were gone when I re-installed the previous situation.
Can anbody give me a hint how I can made the visualbe?
Thanks in advance
Carl
PS. Never ever switch to vista, even DOS is better that this.
It's a long time I asked for the same question : file with extension .mq4 for exemple are no visible with the window's explorer but there are for sure in the directory. You can test it or even see that your metatrader editor can find them. I don't know where it comes from, I thought I had, by mistake, told windows not to show this extension any more. I have searched a lot but with no success. As far as I remember it is the same for the templates.
You can save your file from your MetaTrader Editor on your desktop for exemple and it will be visible. Why? don't ask me, but it is a way to be certain to save your files. Or you can save them as text files...
It's a long time I asked for the same question : file with extension .mq4 for exemple are no visible with the window's explorer but there are for sure in the directory. You can test it or even see that your metatrader editor can find them. I don't know where it comes from, I thought I had, by mistake, told windows not to show this extension any more. I have searched a lot but with no success. As far as I remember it is the same for the templates.
You can save your file from your MetaTrader Editor on your desktop for exemple and it will be visible. Why? don't ask me, but it is a way to be certain to save your files. Or you can save them as text files...
Lots of similar questions on this forum about missing files in Vista...
It's because of "file virtualization" which was added in Vista and later versions of Windows (see, for example, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb756960.aspx).
A bit of background: since at least Windows 2000, Microsoft's guidelines have been that applications should not store read-write user data within Program Files - e.g. MetaTrader's config, history, experts directories etc. MetaTrader has quite good reasons for doing this (because of the need to cater for multiple installations), but it's nevertheless breaking the rules and leading to confusion as a result.
In Vista, when a program tries to write to a file within Program Files, Windows transparently redirects the operation so that the file actually gets stored within the current user's area. The location is usually <user>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore. AppData is a hidden directory, so you may need to change your Windows Explorer settings to make it visible. When software then tries to read a file from Program Files, Vista checks to see if there's a "shadow" copy in this VirtualStore area. If so, that takes precendence over the version within Program Files.
What Microsoft were trying to do with this "file virtualization" was (a) to make badly-behaved software work on Vista, but (b) without actually letting the software alter files within Program Files. The virtualization does work fine from MetaTrader's point of view - the software runs perfectly well on Vista - but it causes confusion for anyone who's looking for files which "ought" to be within Program Files but turn out not to be there.
Finally, and much more practically, there are 3 ways of stopping this behaviour, and letting MetaTrader actually store its files within Program Files:
1. Run MetaTrader as administrator (by right-clicking over the desktop shortcut and choosing "Run as administrator"). Suggested elsewhere on this forum, but not my personal preference.
2. Turn off User Account Controls. Also not my personal preference, though many people get so fed up of Vista's prompts that they do it anyway.
3. Lower the security permissions on the MetaTrader directories within Program Files. If you change the security so that normal users can write and delete these directories, then virtualization no longer kicks in.
With all the above you may appear to lose your current settings as a result - because virtualization has been turned off, and MetaTrader is now seeing the actual files from within Program Files rather the shadow copies within VirtualStore. You can get round this simply by copying the files from VirtualStore into Program Files.
Thanks a lot for those explanations.
(I just realize that I missed the Roger's answer the day I wrote the message)
Thanks for this! was driving my nuts since I upgraded from Winxp to Win7. I do all my mods in the virtualstore folder now, no issues so far.
also be aware if you installed mt4 in vista, in compatability mode for xp, any subsequent files saved will not appear in the mt4 directory folder, even though they are there, you can see your saved templates in the mt4 navigator but theyre directory folder in windows vista only shows the original installed files, none of the new created templates or indicators, even the log files and history data files do not appear to be updated, it is a very weird thing even windows search cannot find them but if you look at the top of the directory folder there is a button called "show compatability files" click this and they all miraculously appear in the folder.
I was directed to this thread because I have a problem with Oanda's new MT4. I can run all other brokers MT4 no problem, but with Oanda I cannot do several things:
1. I cannot apply any custom indicators to the chart. Many custom indicators are listed in the Navigator, I just cannot apply them to the chart. In the drop-down box for indicators, all indicators work fine except "custom" which is greyed-out.
2. I can not run any scripts at all.
3. I cannot get any 2 minute offline charts. I open a 1-minute chart, scroll back a few months, then go to open a 2-minute offline chart, and that is not an option to open.
Is the problem that I need to reinstall MT4 in a different directory outside the /programfilesX86 directory like 7bit said? If so, WHAT directory? He said to install it "somewhere else", but I'm not good with computers and don't know where else to install it.
Can anyone assist?
Thank you in advance.
Roger...
You life saver...
- Free trading apps
- Over 8,000 signals for copying
- Economic news for exploring financial markets
You agree to website policy and terms of use
Hi,
unfortunately I have a acer notebook with vista ( I hope MS is heavily hit by this crisis!!) on which mt4 is running.
Now I wanted to save MT4 with my files (in order to update to mt4 220) but I cant't find MY files by vista?
Neither me nor me as root can see my EAs in the expert folder - all the others yes.
Even if I start the 'editor' and try to open any file (not only .txt) in the expert folder, none of miine are there.
Only the MetaTrader-editor show them to me.
So when I made a copy of the whole metatrader folder I am not sure that my files were copied as well.
It happend exctly this with firefox that e.g. the password files were not saved by the automated vista-backup
and were gone when I re-installed the previous situation.
Can anbody give me a hint how I can made the visualbe?
Thanks in advance
Carl
PS. Never ever switch to vista, even DOS is better that this.