Thanks allot, am defiantly getting you a beer
So I was still detecting my old wallet because I had not deleted my wallet.dat file in the hidden .protoshares folder, right?
I shall now make some more backups of my wallet.dat file found here just to be safe.
I shall then cut and paste my whole .protoshares folder with its wallet.dat file onto a flash drive so that I can just plug the flash drive in when I want to make a transaction.
Then I can download the client again and I should have a new wallet.
Yep - that's more or less it. That wallet.dat file
is your wallet. The application you launch and use is just a client for communicating with the Protoshares network, but that wallet.dat file is what identifies your client as corresponding to your wallet. If you delete this file, then the client will generate a new wallet ID. You were seeing your old wallet (most probably) because that wallet.dat file still existed - despite you deleting the client application. Because that wallet.dat persisted through the uninstall/reinstall of the client, your old wallet ID was still being used.
The way the Protoshare cryptocoin works is your client (again, the application you launch) will use your wallet ID as an identifier. When you open the client application, this client/wallet combo will query the network for any and all transactions involving your wallet ID (this is why you need to download the new blockchains every time you fire up the client before it displays the most recent transactions). It will display any transactions it sees in the blockchains with your wallet ID into the client. This is why you can easily port your wallet to another machine or back it up/restore it and the amount of funds in your wallet will remain the same - as the wallet/client combo relies on the network to essentially 'show' it any transactions and your client will calculate your current funds based on those transactions. This is also why if you loose your wallet ID, you cannot recover from it - because your ID is lost, those transactions cannot be modified or re-routed - simply due to the nature of how the network operates. Although the transactions exist, you have lost the wallet ID to interact with them. So they are adrift in cyberspace, so to speak
I hope that gives you a brief background - BitCoin operates a very similar system. Read up on it here if you're interested:
http://bitcoin.org/en/how-it-worksThank you muchly - appreciated.