I am using TWS version 831.4 which will no longer be supported after September 16, 2005. I have been unable to upgrade to TWS version 851 without losing all of my pages and settings (what I wind up with is the default workspace and no option to go back to my pre-upgrade workspace). I have tried saving my old settings files and replacing the files after the upgrade to TWS 851 but I still get the default workspace when I open TWS 851. I also get a bulletin board message after updating to TWS 851 saying my workspace is out of date and I need to update it. This sucks. I have many hours and days of work in my TWS pages and settings and I do not want to start over trying to manually recreate them. I have learned from my past upgrades to TWS to clone my hard drive before the upgrade so I can go back to my exact previous TWS if the upgrade does not work which leaves me with TWS 831.4 for now. I would appreciate any help from IB or other TWS users.
Catoosa, Here is an idea that might possibly explain why you are having so much trouble. This is just speculation on my part, but I suspect that if you upgrade TWS versions infrequently, as you have done, you will be far more likely to have problems. I suspect that the IB developers focus their efforts on making upgrades successful from one version to the next, but that they do not make much effort to allow successful upgrades from previous TWS versions. If my speculation is correct, then, if you had simply updated from each TWS version to the next one, in sequence, without leapfrogging ahead from version 831 to version 851, then things would have gone much more smoothly for you. I suspect that version 851 just isn't designed or tested very carefully, in terms of its ability to upgrade from a version 20 steps behind. My suggestion is that you go step by step, from each version to the next version in the sequence, without leapfrogging versions. Perhaps you could delay each update as long as possible, and let the more adventurous customers serve as guinea pigs before you jump in. You can download each new TWS version and save it for future use, when the time comes to update to it or to a newer version requiring you to step through the older updates. I don't leapfrog on my TWS versions, and perhaps as a result, I rarely have these types of upgrade problems. The last time I did have a problem with losing my settings, I was able to recover them using TWS features designed for that purpose. Perhaps IBsoft can throw some light on whether part of the problem might be solved by not leapfrogging your TWS versions.
Jimrockford: Thank you for taking the time for your reply. I agree with your thoughts about upgrading TWS. I have been using IB since Feb 2000. I have experienced a long and at times arduous evolution of IB's software upgrades over the years. The upgrades at times come with glitches that require time and effort on my part which induces me to not do upgrades unless there are new features for which I want to upgrade. The upgrades have compromised my pages and settings several times through the years. While the TWS feature improvements have been vast since Feb 2000, the improvements and progress have not come without some pain.
I too have to upgrade my TWS version, which I've been clinging to because it's the most recent version that still uses port 4001 for market data. Our firewall blocks port 4000. I can try to get our IT dept to unblock it to for specific IP addresses; can anyone tell me which hostnames or IP addresses? I know about gw1.ibllc.com; are there others? (I think there might be a host with "farm" in its name).
My tws has connections to mktgw1.ibllc.com and mktgw1.ibllc.ch also. It depends on which market data subscriptions you have. You can find out which servers you are connected to by running the command netstat at a command prompt.
Right now and for the last 2 days I can't even get the software to download. The links come up "Page not be found" Anyone at IB care to shed some light on when the tws links will be active?
IB has confirmed my diagnosis of the problems with TWS Version 851.6. Version 851.6 can correctly update the most recent prior TWS version, but it cannot correctly update some older TWS versions. They are fixing this problem. See IB's confirmation at the related thread at http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=845210#post845210
as far as I can tell, neither of the above two URL's is related to the problems originally starting this thread.