System functions

Solar Fire stores most of it's settings in INI files (*.ini) which contain a mixture of internal system and user settings. (INI is short for initialization). The main INI file is the Solfire9.ini stored in the "Solar Fire User Files\Settings" folder which is a subfolder in the user's Documents or MyDocuments folder. See Saving and Restoring Settings for more information.

Auto Repair

This internal function automatically repairs any paths found in Solfire9.ini. This process runs every time Solar Fire starts up so that it can automatically check and repair any Solar Fire User Files or Solar Fire system paths that are stored as text in the Solfire9.ini file. This function allows a user, who currently has Solar Fire v7.x or later installed, to upgrade to and install a newer Solar Fire version without needing to uninstall the earlier Solar Fire version. Once this new version is run, it now automatically "connects" the Solar Fire User Files from the older version to the newer version.

Additionally, if any paths or filenames get corrupted during any Solar Fire session, these paths and/or filenames will be automatically repaired at the next startup of Solar Fire.

When checking the "SavedImagePath" key in the Solfire9.ini file Solar Fire checks that the folder exists and also if the computer is Windows Vista (or later) that the folder is not a "system" folder, such as C:\Windows or C:\Program Files. If it is a "system" folder for this Windows version then the path is changed to that of the Solar Fire User Files.

If for some reason, the auto repair feature is required to be turned off then a key "BypassINIRepair" located in the [Solar Fire] section of Solfire9.ini, can be changed from 1 to 2 (after the newer version has been run for the first time) and once this change is saved, no further checking or repairing of the INI file will take place.

Auto Recover

This internal function allows Solar Fire to recover if certain common files get deleted. Common files are files that are stored in an area on a computer for access by not just one application, but by many applications.

This situation can occur if you already have Solar Fire v7.0.x (or later) installed, upgrade and install a later version of Solar Fire and then decide to uninstall the earlier version. During the uninstall of that earlier version, certain common files to the two versions may be deleted and that situation can potentially give rise to errors at the next startup. With Auto Recover, Solar Fire will now automatically restore the common files that were deleted.