{"id":674,"date":"2008-06-12T11:07:21","date_gmt":"2008-06-12T10:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/?p=674"},"modified":"2008-06-12T11:07:21","modified_gmt":"2008-06-12T10:07:21","slug":"uk-official-tax-cd-caught-by-vistas-virtual-store","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/674-uk-official-tax-cd-caught-by-vistas-virtual-store.html","title":{"rendered":"UK official tax CD caught by Vista\u2019s virtual store"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

In the UK, HM Revenue and Customs issues an Employer CD-ROM which calculates tax and national insurance. Small businesses can use it to enter pay details through the year; then at the end of the tax year the application allows uploading of the data as the company\u2019s formal annual submission.<\/p>\n

Very handy; but clearly it\u2019s important to backup the data. There is an entry on this in the CD\u2019s online Help:<\/p>\n

\n

We recommend that you backup the data after each pay period and keep it separate from the computer.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Good advice; but the instructions puzzled me. It says all the data is in the program files folder (in breach of Microsoft\u2019s guidelines, even though this is a 2008 CD), and that to backup:<\/p>\n

\n

Copy the folder named \u2018Data\u2019 to your chosen means of backup. (To copy, right click the folder and select \u2018Send to\u2019).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

I found this surprising because on Vista the Program Files directory is read-only. I checked; and there is no user data in this folder on Vista. Instead, the data is in Vista\u2019s Virtual Store, and you can find it at:<\/p>\n

C:\\Users\\[Username]\\AppData\\Local\\VirtualStore\\Program Files\\HMRC\\Employer CD-ROM 2008\\data<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a couple of issues here. First, why is the UK government sending out CDs that are not properly compatible with Windows Vista, more than a year after its release? The Virtual Store is a compatibility feature; it is not intended for long-term use.<\/p>\n

More important, the backup instructions are plain wrong for Vista users. How many businesses out there have got carefully made backups of a folder that does not in fact contain their data?<\/p>\n

In an official application used by many thousands of businesses, it\u2019s a significant blunder.<\/p>\n

Technorati tags: vista<\/a>, uac<\/a>, microsoft<\/a>, hm revenue and customs<\/a>, virtual store<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the UK, HM Revenue and Customs issues an Employer CD-ROM which calculates tax and national insurance. Small businesses can use it to enter pay details through the year; then at the end of the tax year the application allows uploading of the data as the company\u2019s formal annual submission. Very handy; but clearly it\u2019s … Continue reading UK official tax CD caught by Vista\u2019s virtual store<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,79,80,93,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-microsoft","category-software","category-software-development","category-vista","category-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}