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Nova for Windows (Nova) "remembers" all your settings for satellites,
observers, time, etc. between sessions so that it is not necessary to re-enter them every
time that you run the program. Nova does this by writing several files to disk
whenever the program is closed. These between-sessions data files record almost all
aspects of Nova's operation, including View contents and preferences.
Sometimes, we (NLSA) update Nova for Windows in order to corrects bugs. These bug-fix updates usually do not require a change to the between-session files. On the other hand, sometimes we add completely new features to Nova... and so the format of the between-sessions files must change in order to record the new information. For example, in the update from Nova version 2.0p to 2.0q, we added sound alarms and stars/constellations. Each feature has several options associated with it: whether to play sound alarms or not, what sounds to play, when to play them, and so forth.
Whenever the formats of the between-sessions files are changed, it is necessary to erase the files from older versions, otherwise Nova would crash when it tried to read the old files.
We try very hard to minimize the number of instances in which updates require new between-sessions files because we understand that rebuilding your preferences and Views is inconvenient.