Register New Computer - no "nag"

Scrivener Scrivener for Windows
1

Hi. My laptop crashed and died. I took it in and had everything transferred to a new one. I read the directions on how to register Scrivener on a new computer. I waited for the “nag box” to prompt me to put in the information I received when I purchased Scrivener, but none came up. I’ve reloaded. I’ve uninstalled. Reinstalled. Nothing. It just acts as if I’ve never written a word on Scrivener (scary!). I’m sure there’s a simple fix, but I sure can’t figure it out.

I’m working on Windows8.

Thanks in advance! ~Karen

2

Since you are using a new computer, the new installation of Scrivener probably has no clue where you were storing your projects, you will need to load them from the disk. You mentioned transferring everything over, so I imagine everything should be somewhat familiar in terms of where you saved your projects. You should be able to navigate to a project with Explorer and double-click on the ‘project’ file to load it.

3

I’m using Firefox. Is that a problem? You mentioned Explorer. Should I be going through that? I did find some of my work, but not all of it and it’s not in the Scrivener program itself. I guess what I’ve assumed may be wrong. My assumption was that Scrivener is like Gmail, for example; you can put in a password on any computer anywhere and it will log you into your account. Is that NOT the case?

Thanks for the response. Just need to know how to do this still. K

4

I did send an email to technical support but never received anything back…not even a generated email confirmation. Should I resend it? I’m trying not to panic. I have an agent waiting for this manuscript and was about 3/4 or the way through it. K

5

I would check your spam folder. We try to be really good at getting back within 24 to 48 hours.

When I said Explorer, I meant Windows Explorer, that you use to browse folders and files. Scrivener is more like OpenOffice where you save files to your disk and load them later. It sounds like you may still need to copy your Scrivener projects over from the other computer.

6

I just checked my old computer. It is compromised though and looks like Scrivener isn’t there at all. When I click on the icon on the desktop, it directs me to install the program. I didn’t do the work on it myself - my computer guy did. So, I barely understand this stuff.

It hasn’t been 24-hours yet, I just thought I’d get a confirmation e-mail. It isn’t in my Spam folder.

So, just so I understand - when Scrivener does the auto-save thing, does it save to my computer?I’ve searched my files and just don’t see it. Oh boy!

7

It’s okay, there is no need to load them in Scrivener on the old computer. We just want to get the projects to the new computer, not work with them. What you’re looking for are folders that end in “.scriv”. That whole folder is one project. So for every project you have, there should be a folder like that (and maybe more if you save copies). You want to copy all of those to the new computer.

Like I say though, if you already did have a full copy done at the computer store, then they should already be on the new computer, you just need to find the one you want to open. Probably somewhere in your “My Documents” folder. Look for the “.scriv” folder with the name of the project you want, double-click on the folder to open it, then double-click the project file within the folder. It should open in Scrivener, and now you can load it from the Recent Projects button, or just have it auto-reload like you’re used to. It’s good to know where these things actually are though, for cases like this.

Okay, well when you get through, copy and paste the URL for this thread into your discussion so they can know where to pick up on it.

8

I did all of that and thought you were on to something. I did a search of the documents folders yesterday, but this time I searched the whole computer. Found a bunch of .scriv files. Looked for the name of my project. I found one that says “Compile 1” on it. But it’s from very early on, so only has about 9,000 words in it. The others are just the program files and the two “dummy” projects I set up when I was trying to figure this all out.

So, when I was working on Scrivener and it auto-saved, did that go to a file on my computer, or was I supposed to do something else too?

Should I have received an email telling me my request for help has been received?

Thanks for your responses. You’re keeping me from throwing myself off a bridge (that’s a joke – don’t send the mental health team to my door!). Karen

9

Yes, it saved exactly where you told it to save. When you created the project, you were asked what to call it and what folder to put it in. From that point on it just loads that project when you start the software, and saves all changes to it.

So that is where you need to be looking. It sounds like you still have the old computer, that is where I would look first, since you know you were working fine there before. That means the files were on the disk. Once you find them on the old computer, they should be in the same place on the new one—if note you should contact your computer expert and see what went wrong with the transfer.

One point of clarity, I’m not sure if it matters, but you referred to “.sciv files”. These will actually be folders, not files, a project is a folder ending in “.scriv” with lots of other files within it—the whole folder is the project. If you had narrowed your search down to just documents, then that might explain why you didn’t find much.

You mean just an auto-responder? No, we don’t have that turned on unless there are expected delays, or we have the “office” closed for a holiday.

10

Sorry for the delay. My mother had surgery, so I’m juggling a lot. So, I left my old computer with my computer guy. He did find some files and gave me a disc with them on it. When I click on the one that looks the most promising, here is what it says;

Location Access Error
Cannot access: ‘E/Scrivs/project (5).scrivx’
File is not writable: Access is denied.
Auto-saves need write permission to your project.

Thoughts?

Thanks. I sent two notes to Scrivener. I never got a response; not in spam folder either. Baffled with whole thing. Geesh! Karen

11

So sorry. I did receive responses from tech support. As I said, I’ve been in and out of hospital with my Mama. The rest of my message is still accurate though.

12

Okay good, they should be able to help you out.

13

Waiting…waiting (for tech response via email).

14

We sent you a message a few hours ago, it sounds like you might need to whitelist ‘tenderapp.com’ or something.

15

Hope I’m not butting in… Just wanted to offer a comment…

As AmberV discussed above, Scrivener projects are not just a single file.

Each project is a folder, whose name ends in .scriv
Example: myproject.scriv

Each project’s folder contains numerous files and folders, all of which you will need. If you look inside the project’s .scriv folder, at the highest level inside you’ll see a .scrivx file (typically project.scrivx), plus folders named Files, Settings and Snapshots. They in turn contain additional folders and files.

To repeat, for each project, you need the whole thing, the .scriv folder and everything that was in it.

So when the computer tech is searching, they need to locate the .scriv folders, not just the .scrivx file. They can do this by either searching for folders (directories) having .scriv on the end of their names or by searching for .scrivx files, then looking a level up where each is found, to determine the .scriv folders they are in. They then need to copy the entire .scriv folder(s).

Hopefully that’s what they’ve done and provided you.

Moving on…

You mention they gave you a disk with the hopefully recovered files on it. If that’s a DVD or other read-only media, you’ll need to copy the entire project folders onto a writeable drive, probably your main drive that Windows launches from, your desktop and documents reside on, etc. so that Scrivener can open the project. Typically, that is the C: drive. Scrivener needs the write access capability that provides, even if all you are attempting to do is just open the project.

Hope that helps.

Hope things are well with you and yours.