Does WinTD require the use of Tournament Administrator
for downloading the rating supplements from the USCF website?
I can’t seem to get around having TA installed, but from what I have read elsewhere on this forum, TA isn’t used much anymore. How is everyone downloading the supplements and using them with WinTD if this is true?
Terry Winchester
No. You download and unzip the big database (TARATSUP.DBF), then tell WinTD (or SwissSys) where to look for it. When the supplements come out, you download and unzip them, then use the program’s internal utility to import into the big fellow and re-index. Tournament Administrator is used these days only to input results from scratch (and the pairing programs work better for this anyway). You do a zipfile utility (this is built into XP).
A point I have had trouble getting across to some TDs is the database is not part of the pairing program. It is a file which the program can access.
Thanks John.
Just a clarification, please. Is there’s no need to d/l the INSTALLB .exe file?
You say to “use the program’s internal utility to import into the big fellow and re-index”. I assume that the program’s ‘internal utility’ (in WinTD, it’s under ‘Update USCF Database’ in the File menu) automatically re-indexes, and no need to run the program (TA) to re-index - is that right?
Well, besides the fact that the database gives a rating to the players, it shouldn’t have anything to do with the pairing results. I don’t see how this is difficult to understand 
Terry Winchester
Yes. Use and follow the prompts. However, I believe WinTD does not re-index until you access the database again, so don’t wait until you’re in a hurry to process entries.
It shouldn’t be. But I wasted a lot of time trying to explain to a TD who should have known better that, if he installed a new version of SwissSys (or WinTD), he would not have to download and install a new copy of the database.