Bitcoin client on two laptops ?

[redwoods]

I am trying to install the BTC client on a new laptop, I took the wallet.dat file from the old laptop and copied and pasted it into the new one,
It now shows the right amount of bitcoin but as I'm downloading the blockchain after a while, a fatal error occurs and the client closes...

Am I right in thinking you cant have the same 'account' on different laptops ? and would uninstalling on the old allow the new one to update the blockchain ?

any advice appreciated

[1715178460]

1715178460

[1715178460]

1715178460

[1715178460]

1715178460

[andytoshi]

No. The new laptop has no awareness of what's going on with the old one, so it is fine to move wallet.dat like this. (Though if you use the same wallet.dat on multiple computers at the same time, you will not have fun. Don't do this.)

There is no notion of "accounts" the way you are thinking. The wallet.dat file stores some key material and your transaction history, and the rest of the network is happily oblivious to what exactly is in there.

My guess is that if you copied wallet.dat before shutting down Bitcoin on the old system, the file you copied was not in a finalized state, hence the crash. If you shut down Bitcoin on the old laptop then re-copy the file, things might work for you. If not, this may be a bug with the Bitcoin client.

[redwoods]

The wallet.dat file seems to be exactly the same, in size anyway, as the one I used to backup my old laptop when I had to reinstall the client before,

could it be anything to do with windows 8 ? which is what this new laptop is running

[cp1]

You can copy the wallet.dat to whichever computer you want, but if you do a lot of transactions they will slowly become out of sync because each will be generating new change addresses.  It sounds like you have unrelated problems, try deleting the wallet.dat, let the blockchain download, and then recopy the wallet. Make sure to exit bitcoin-qt before copying.

You should probably use something like electrum, the wallet is easier to sync between multiple computers because they will all generate the same addresses.

[redwoods]

I havent made any transactions other than buying a few bitcoins, last March, I will try deleting the wallet.dat file and downloading the blockchain like you say, Thanks

[cp1]

Make sure you have a backup of course before deleting anything   Or just rename, always safer.

[neil54321]

safe is always  priority