There may come a time when you will want to transfer your HRD software from one computer to another.
This documentation will explain how we recommend accomplishing this task.
We DO NOT ever recommend just copying the HRD files or folders from one computer to another.
In most cases this can cause more issues and work than if you follow our suggestions.
The reason is simple. The new computer probably has a different operating system, and/or different hardware inside, such as soundcard, USB ports, and other differences, so, if you just copy the files and folders from one computer to another, you will probably end up setting everything up from scratch anyway, so, it’s best to follow these instructions.
Install HRD on the New Computer
The first step to moving HRD from one computer to another would be to make sure you have your HRD Activation Key available.
If you don’t have your key, please contact HRD Support or HRD Sales by either opening a support ticket or sending an e-mail to support@hrdsoftwarellc.com or sales@hrdsoftwarellc.com and asking them to provide you with your current Activation Key.
The next step is to download the most recent version of the HRD software from our website and install it on the new computer and activate it using your Activation Key.
Once the HRD software is installed on the new computer, run HRD, and, rather than having your own radio connected to the new computer, select one of the “Demomatic” radios from the Rig Connect screen.
Run the HRD software using the Demomatic radio and open the Logbook, DM-780, Satellite Tracker (if you plan on using this), and the Rotor Control (again only if you plan on using a rotator) to make sure everything opens and runs correctly before actually connecting your own radio to the system. Should you get any errors or have any problems while running with the Demomatic radio, please contact support and we can assist you with resolving any problems you may be having.
If you’re not familiar with running a Demomatic radio in HRD, contact support and we can provide you with the instructions.
Once you’re sure all the programs in HRD load and run properly, move on to the next step.
Transferring Your Files
The next step is to prepare the important files on the old computer to be transferred to the new one.
Move to the old computer and run HRD.
Open the Logbook software and proceed to do a backup of your logbook to a flash drive or to Dropbox, One Drive, Google Drive or one of the many other cloud storage entities,
NOTE: DO NOT use an ADIF export for this step.
The ADIF option does NOT include ALL the fields in your logbook database, so using this option would result in you losing part of the data for your contact records.
You MUST use the BACKUP function in HRD for this step, and, you MUST do it for each database you have successfully configured in the software.
These backups should be made to a Flash Drive, to your Desktop, to another folder in your Documents folder or to Dropbox or other cloud storage location you may be using.
If you are NOT familiar with making these backups, please click on the following link and watch the video on our YouTube channel. HRD Logbook Backup - Recovery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py4vvj1bRZk
Saving Your Custom Macros
You may have spent a lot of time creating custom macro sets in the DM-780 program.
In order to save these macro sets and transfer them to the new computer, open your Macro Manager by clicking on “Program Options” and selecting “Macros” from the menu on the left side of the Program Options screen. This will open the Macro Manager screen shown below.
Once in the Macro Manager, use the “Macro Set” dropdown to select your custom macro set and click the “Save As” button on the Manager Toolbar.
When the “Save As” screen opens:
1. Navigate to the location where you are saving the file. This again, could be a flash drive or one of the cloud options mentioned earlier in this document.
2. The default name for any saved macro set is “DMMacroDefns.xml”, so you will want to change this to the same name as you gave it in the Macro Manager, in this case, I would rename it to “FT-950 Macros.xml” which is the macro set I select from the manager when I’m using my FT-950 radio.
Follow the above procedure to save each of your custom macro sets to a specific file for transfer to the new computer.
Restoring Files To New Computer
Once you have backed up your logbook to a flash drive or cloud storage location, restoring them to the new computer is quite simple.
For the Logbook, just open the empty logbook on the new computer and use the “Backup > Restore” function, navigate to the location where you have the logbook .XML file saved, select the file and follow the prompts to restore it back to the new computer.
The custom macro files are restored in much the same way. In DM-780 Program Options, open the Macro Manager. Click on the “Macro Set” dropdown and select an empty macro set, for example, “Set 3”. Click the “LOAD” button on the Macro Manager toolbar and navigate to the flash drive or location where you saved the Custom Macro sets and select the one to be stored in “Set 3” and click “Open”. The file will be imported into Macro Set #3. To rename the set back to its original name, just click the “Set Title” button and the name of “Set 3” will be changed to the name you had saved the file as.
Transfer Completed!
Your transfer is now complete and you can continue to setup your radio and configure the rest of the HRD software just as you did when you installed it on the old computer. If you have any questions about this procedure, please, don’t hesitate to contact HRD support for further assistance.