Thank you for purchasing FOREVER Historian™ 6! We are so excited to offer this updated version of Historian to you!!
This article is written for users who already own – and use – Historian 4. Now that you have Historian 6, you will likely want to open the vault you created in Historian 4 in your new program.
If you are brand new to Historian – welcome!!! You will need to create a new cabinet in Historian 6 when you first open the software and import photos to that cabinet. The software will provide information along the way, but if you have additional questions, please contact our Client Care team at 1-888-367-3837 or support@forever.com for assistance.
SET UP:
- First, make sure you know where your Historian 4 vault is located on your computer. If you are not sure, open Historian 4 and copy the path to your Historian 4 vault from the Welcome screen. (Many users keep their vaults at C:\\Users\Public\Documents\{vault name}.)
- Next, make sure that the Shadow and/or Backup copies of your vault in Historian 4 are up to date. Historian 4 automatically backs up your shadow copy each time you close the program. If Historian 4 is open, simply save any work you are doing and close the software; the Shadow Copy will update. If Historian 4 is closed, then your Shadow Copy is already up to date.
- If you have a Backup copy of your Historian 4 vault, please open Historian 4 and use the Incremental Backup tool to make sure that your Backup copy is updated.
Note: If you keep your Shadow and/or Backup copy(ies) on an External Hard Drive, remember to connect that to your computer before running the Incremental Backup tool or closing Historian 4 to update your Shadow copy.
If you are not already in the habit of creating a Shadow and/or Backup copy, we strongly urge you to do so. That is good practice for any files stored on a computer, and especially to keep your precious memories safe. While computers are typically reliable machines, they can break down, sometimes without warning.
Now for the fun part – opening Historian 6!
DOWNLOADING AND INSTALLING
- Once you have purchased Historian 6, click the Download button either on the Order Confirmation page of the website (available immediately after a successful purchase) or from the Order History or Downloads sections of your FOREVER Account Settings.
- Open the downloaded file and proceed through the wizard (series of windows) to install the program.
- You can either click the “Launch Historian 6” checkbox on the last page of the wizard or open Historian 6 from your desktop.
OPENING HISTORIAN 6
- When Historian 6 opens, it will display a screen to login to your FOREVER Account. The login window looks like this:
This is a 1-time login so we can verify that you have purchased a Historian 6 license.
- Once you enter your FOREVER Account username (email) and password, Historian will verify your purchase and activate. You will get the following messages (looking up your account, and activated):
- Click “OK,” to begin using Historian 6!
ACCESSING YOUR HISTORIAN 4 VAULT
- Since the software doesn’t know that you were a Historian 4 user who already has a vault (or maybe multiple vaults), it automatically wants to help you create a new cabinet (with Historian 6, we updated the name of the repository for your files from “vault” to “cabinet”). You, however, have a vault from Historian 4 that you plan to open, so you do not need to create a cabinet at this time. Click the “Cancel” button in the lower right corner of the “New cabinet” window to cancel this process.
- Click on “Open a Cabinet” at the top of the Welcome screen to begin the process of accessing your Historian 4 vault.
- Navigate to the location of your Historian 4 vault that you found in the first step of “SET UP” above, select the vault, and click the “Select Folder” button at the bottom right.
Note: If you double-click your Historian 4 vault, you will see a series of folders. You can still click the “Select Folder” button in the bottom right of that window to open the vault in Historian 6.
Now your Historian 4 vault is open in Historian 6 and you can enjoy all the benefits of your new software!!