This article relates to "older" technology. Could still be relevant to some:
We do not recommend backing up to CD from within UltimateTax, although in some cases, third-party software for CD creation will allow this to work.
You can backup returns to a directory on your hard drive and then burn the backup files to CD using your CD creation software. However, we cannot offer support for this due to the many different programs available. Refer to your CD creation software vendor for documentation or help with that process.
If you're using Windows XP, this task is easier. When you insert a blank CD into your CD burner, Windows opens a dialog box asking if you want to open a writable CD folder. If you do this, you can drag and drop files and/or directories you want to burn into the folder. Windows XP makes a copy of these files in a special 'staging area' (this could require a lot of disk space) until it is time to burn the CD. At this point, you can still change your mind about any of the contents in the folder. Simply select and delete any files or directories you don't want to be copied. They are removed from the staging area only, and your original files are not deleted.
To burn a UltimateTax backup to CD, you'll need to find the location on your hard drive where you saved the backup, then drag the following files to the writable CD folder:
BACKUP.001
BACKUP.OPT
BACKUP.END
For 2008 and later, you will only have 2 files:
Backup.001
Backup.OPT
Backup.OPT
When you're ready to record, just click Write these files to CD in the taskbar to the left. The CD Writing Wizard opens and prompts you for a label for the CD. You can enter up to 16 characters. Click Next, and the wizard displays a progress bar indicating the status.
When restoring from a CD-R backup, all files will have a Read Only attribute that will have to be removed. (CD-RWs shouldn't require this)
In some cases, the UltimateTax restore program may have problems reading the data from the CD, causing the restore program to exit without processing the backup files. In these cases, the three backup files (BACKUP.001, BACKUP.OPT, and BACKUP.END) will need to be copied to the C:\ drive (or any other hard disk drive location) and restored from the new location.
- Copy the three files and paste them to a location on your C: drive
- Change the Default backup drive in Setup Options to use the C:\ drive (necessary prior to UltimateTax 2003; later years will prompt you to find the backup location)
- Restore from the location on the C: drive.
If you're attempting to use a burned CD to transfer a federal or state update that you downloaded from the Internet, you do not need to use the Transfer Update options within UltimateTax. Instead, just copy the executable update file from the CD (TWUPDxx.EXE) to the desktop of the machine that needs the update. Then double-click the update just as you did on the computer at which it was downloaded.
This information applies to all years of the UltimateTax software.
