Opening an old backup for review

There may be times when you want to look at an old backup database, to check something that may have changed or been purged from the current data.  There are a couple of safe ways to do this without affecting your current data.  

IMPORTANT:  In older versions of Campground Master (prior to v3.6), opening any database might make it used that as the new default database -- be sure to make a note of where your normal database is located (e.g. through Maintenance / Program Options / Database) before attempting to open a different one.

The safe way to open a backup without changing your current data is to extract the old database file from the backup, rename it, and then open it.

Note: This assumes familiarity with folder navigation, file opening and file copying in Windows Explorer (or My Computer).  If you are not familiar with manipulating files in Windows, then we don't recommend that you attempt this on your own.

The backup file is typically a "zip" compressed file.  You should be able to "open" a backup in Windows Explorer if you have Windows XP or later, and you'll see the file "database.prk" in it (possibly with some other files like BMP map images).  Don't try to open these file directly (Campground Master probably won't let you do that anyway) -- instead, you need to Extract the "database.prk" file out of the backup to somewhere like My Documents.  Then, Rename the file to something like "old.prk" (because Campground Master won't open one that's called "database").  Then you can safely Open it in Campground Master, using File / Open.

Note: When you open it, you should get a message saying that it will NOT be used as the default database.  This is what you want to see, so the next time you open Campground Master your normal data will be opened.

When you're finished viewing the old backup, close Campground Master.  It's a good idea to clean things up by deleting the old.prk file as well as any log files or auto-backup files that it created for the old database.  Now when you re-open Campground Master, it should open your normal database again.