When specifying a volume in AskiaSurf, you can store the path name in one of three formats: absolute, relative or network.
In an absolute path, the location and name of a file are expressed in full, starting with the relevant drive letter, including all appropriate directories, and ending with the file-name. The path is thus completely independent of the location of the campaign (QEW) file. For example, a data file (called wave1.qes) might be in the directory C:survey datapensions campaign. In this situation, the absolute path would be expressed as C:survey datapensions campaignwave1.qes.
An absolute path will continue to work if you move the campaign (QEW) file on the same computer, as long as the volume file does not move, but will probably not work if you move the campaign file to a different computer, as the drive letter may no longer refer to the same drive (it may refer to a local drive which will not be present on the new computer, or it may refers to a network drive whose letter mapping may not be the same on both machines). It will also no longer work if the volume file/s move to a different location on the same computer. We therefore recommend that, if you want to refer to a volume on the local machine, you use a relative path. If you want to refer to a volume on a network drive, use a network path, as this will not break if the campaign file is moved to a different computer (as the unique computer and drive names will be present).