by Alan Bonnici

Created on: August 30, 2010   Last Updated: August 31, 2010

Sage Pastel Evolution is an Accounting / Stock / Point of Sale program for medium to large sized companies. The program can support a large number of concurrent users and an unlimited number of companies. It uses Microsoft SQL Server as its underlying database. Small setups (up to 10 users) can use Microsoft SQL Server Express with larger shops necessitating the use of the standard edition of SQL Server.

In order to backup Sage Pastel Evolution one needs to backup the Microsoft SQL Server database as well as the appropriate registry entries. In this article I will not discuss how to backup Microsoft SQL Server Express or Standard edition—email me on chribonn@gmail.com if you are interested in a write-up on how to backup these products.

The Windows Registry

A word of warning about handling the registry: unlike many programs, the registry program does not have an undo or an undelete option and changes go into effect immediately. If you delete a file by mistake you can pull it out of limbo by visiting the Recycle Bin. If you screw up a document, pressing undo will take you back one action at a time until you reach the stage before the oops or, if necessary, you can abandon all changes done during that session simply by not saving the updated document. None of this exists in the registry so be cautious.  

How Sage Pastel Evolution uses the Windows registry

The Sage Pastel Evolution program is a thick client that makes use of windows registry to store customisations each user makes to the program. Module settings, what information is shown, how it is formatted and the order of columns are all examples of the type of information that one can find in the registry. This is the approach Sage used to give each user his own personalised environment. If a single Windows login is used by multiple sage users, each user can have his own tweaks.

Storing the settings of each user within a computer’s registry rather than as a record within the Microsoft SQL database is a debatable design decision especially since database technology constitutes a core component of this product. My reasoning is that if a user wants column A to come before column B and column C being hidden, he would want that on each and every computer he uses. A person who uses more than one computer must set the customisations on each computer. When a new account is created, there is no option to copy settings from an existing user to the new one. And, if anyone of the client computers fails,

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