Checking Customer and Target Counts When QuickBooks Desktop Will Not Open
When QuickBooks Desktop will not open, the customer, vendor, transaction, and target counts a migration needs can still be read safely.
The customer, vendor, transaction, and target counts live in one place: the Product Information window, reached by pressing F2 once a company file is open. When QuickBooks Desktop will not start at all, that window is out of reach. The numbers can still be read without risk to your data. The route runs through a backup, a second computer, and a trial installation.
Why is there no text file with these numbers?
Because the counts are not stored as text anywhere. QuickBooks calculates them from the company database every time the window opens. A target, the figure migration checks care about most, is a running tally of the individual lines behind every transaction. No file on the disk holds that total.
The company file itself, the .qbw, is a proprietary database. Open it in Notepad and you see binary fragments, not readable totals. The neighboring files do not help either. The .tlg transaction log is binary, and the various .ini files hold program settings, not data. Text searches across all of them will never surface these four figures. Only a working copy of QuickBooks can compute them, so the task is to get one talking to a copy of your data.
Before you start
Gather three things: the most recent backup of the company file, a .qbb; the Administrator password for that backup; and a spare computer. If no backup exists but the .qbw can still be copied from the drive, copy it together with its .tlg companion rather than moving either file.
Never experiment on the only copy. Leave the original backup untouched and work from the duplicate. The trial machine runs single-user by definition, so the usual multi-user cautions do not apply.
One version rule matters. A trial from the same year as your file, or a later year, can open it; an older trial cannot, because company files upgrade forward only. If the file was kept in an Enterprise edition, the trial must be Enterprise too.
Opening the backup in a trial install
- Copy the backup into a new, clearly named folder on the second computer. The name should make plain that this is a test copy.
- Install a trial of QuickBooks Desktop on that machine, downloaded from Intuit's own site. Match the year of your file, or go newer.
- Open the trial and choose Open or Restore Company, then Restore a backup copy. Point it at the copied .qbb.
- When asked where to save the restored file, choose your test folder. Give the restored company a distinct name so it cannot be confused with live data.
- If the trial is newer than your original version, let the program update the file. The format upgrade is one-way for that copy and can run long on a large file.
- Sign in as Administrator, then press F2. The Product Information window opens with the file.
Reading the counts in the Product Information window
Under List Information you will find the customer, vendor, employee, and item counts. Under File Information sit the database size, the transaction count, and the target count. Note all the figures or take a screenshot; a screenshot of this window is what most migration reviews ask for. You will know the procedure worked when the window fills with plausible numbers rather than zeros.
Targets deserve a sentence of their own. Every line on a transaction adds to the total, so one invoice carrying five items is several targets. That is the figure our engineers check against import limits before a move to QuickBooks Online. When the count is over the limit, condensing an oversized QuickBooks file brings it down before the move.
If the restore fails
The detour has a useful side effect: it shows where the fault sits. When the backup opens cleanly on the second machine, your data is fine and the original failure lies in the installation, the machine, or the licensing, not in the books.
A backup that will not restore, or a restored copy that throws errors, runs deeper than this workaround reaches. Try an older backup next. A failure that follows the file across every copy points to real damage, and that calls for QuickBooks data recovery when a file will not open rather than a different reader. Nothing here touches the broken installation, so you can test as many backups as you need.