New PT Prefs helper

[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by Dave S.

Is there any reason why a restored preference file might not be as good as just manually re-entering the preferences? I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to computers, I still don’t understand technically why preferences have to be trashed periodically or why the ProTools app itself can’t be made to handle this itself. But I know that when I stop trashing preferences weird problems eventually pop up. I’ve always manually reentered preferences myself but thought it would be cool if I could do it with a touch of a button within the ProTools helper app.

Restoring preference files from the same version of ProTools isn't typically such an issue, it's when PT goes through a more significant update that things can get slippery. I suspect that the reason is that the parameters within the preference file change, which can be confusing to certain versions of ProTools.

Imagine importing a pref file from a newer version of PT which might contain a parameter for setting the default level of sends. If you place that file into an older version of PT, there's data for the default send which that particular version of PT won't recognize. Parameters don't match up. Obviously, this is an oversimplified explanation, but you get the drift.

And this is the reason why (in my experience) it's best to recreate preference files from scratch. Anomalies and corruption are simply less likely to exist. In my company's experience, PT has operated more swiftly and with fewer issues when prefs were created from scratch.