Help, I've lost my Help files!
Since R5, Notes has stored Help files in the Help subdirectory. I think R4 put them in the Doc subdirectory. As I used R5 and made copies and replicas of various Notes documentation database, I put them in Help too, because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Then I installed Notes 6 and indexed the Notes 6 Help files. I decided to re-index my R5 Help files, and they were gone! I looked some more, and the whole directory was empty. Empty, that is, of all but the Notes 6 files. All my documentation databases were gone, leaving just the .ft fulltext directories! Oh bugger, I thought.

One good thing, I suppose, is that most of them were quite old and many I hadn't looked at for a while, so the enforced cleanup had some merits. But that isn't really the point.

Laboriously, I re-created replicas of at least the R5 files from an R5 server and re-indexed them. These are the morals I learned from this experience:

• Moral 1: Don't keep your own files in the Help subdirectory in R5 or Notes 6 ever again.

• Moral 2: Make a backup of the Notes data directory before an upgrade.

Watch your Modems directory, too!
Then I tried dialing a remote server. Modem File Error! I looked at the Ports setup, and it couldn't find my nicely crafted personal modem file, which used ATX1 to avoid waiting for a dial tone. Oh bloody bugger, I whispered. Yes, the Notes 6 client install deletes all the contents of the Modems directory too, before replacing it with the new content.

Fortunately, I also spotted that the new modem setup dialog has a checkbox for Wait for Dial Tone, so I was up again quickly. But that's not really the point either.

Here's what I learned from this experience:

• Moral 1: Make safe copies of any custom modem files as soon as you've tested them. Don't leave your only copy in the Modems subdirectory.

• Moral 2: Make a backup of the Notes data directory before an upgrade.

Know your installer
You'd probably think that by now I'd have learned my lesson. Well, just today I downloaded the Notes 6.0.1 incremental installer from Notes.Net that had just arrived.