When I went through the same situation, I did the following:
backup the log in a real, known directory, like Desktop. Copy the logfile.bak to the other PC, and "fix" the logfile on the new PC.
This shadow directory story is really driving me crazy, especially the way Oceanic deals with it. There is no "save as" where you could chose a directory. There is no way to merge two logfiles together either.
But it does do a "save as" where you can choose the location for a backup.
All the shadow directory stuff or VirtualStore as Microsoft calls it was created by Microsoft as an attempt to create local file storage on per user basis without applications having to deal it.
In my mind this is another of many poor windows programming techniques that have proliferated over the past 25 years.
It would be nice if applications would simply start doing their per user storage the way Unix has been doing it for 40 years.
- Create a subdirectory for the application data under the users home directory.....
Anyway, probably the easiest way to avoid all this would be backup up the logfile/logbook using Oceanlog,
then copy the backup logfile to the new machine and restore the logfile/logbook using Oceanlog.
Oceanlog lets you specify the locations for the backup and restore.
You could even do the save and restore directly to/from a thumb drive.
That way you completely avoid any of the Vista virtual store stuff.
This won't allow you to merge the data from 2 different logs, but it will allow you to move an existing Oceanlog logbook to the new machine.
Alternatively, if you want to copy the database file manually,
you don't have to copy the logfile to OceanLog's default location.
I just did a test and put the logbook database file directly on my desktop.
I then started OceanLog and did a [Logbook]->[Open Log]
Oceanlog does switch to its default directory location for opening logbooks but you
can navigate over to wherever you copied the file.
The next time you open OceanLog it will remember the last logbook file you opened wherever you stored it.
Using a location that is different from the default Oceanlog location is good if you ever run Vista in different UAC modes.
i.e. sometimes have it on and sometimes turn it off.
With a non default location under somewhere under your home directory,
you will always know where your logfile is and it won't move or disappear depending on whether UAC is on or off.
------
If you want to merge the data from multiple logs or have the data from different vendors dive computers all in the same electronic log, you will have to use a 3rd party dive log package such as Scubase or DivingLog.
--- bill