If you’re experiencing persistent issues with NinjaTrader 8, a full reinstall can help resolve software corruption, glitches, or update-related problems. This guide walks you through safely reinstalling NinjaTrader 8 without losing your strategies, templates, or workspaces.
Before you restore everything: Blindly restoring your entire old NinjaTrader 8 folder wholesale can bring back the exact corruption, bad settings, or damaged files that caused the instability in the first place — defeating the purpose of the reinstall. Instead of restoring everything at once, be selective: bring back your strategies, indicators, templates, and workspaces first, confirm the platform is stable, and only restore additional items (like the database) if you still need them.
Step #1: Close All Applications
Make sure NinjaTrader and any related trading applications are fully closed.
Step #2: Backup Your Configuration
Go to your Documents folder.
Locate the folder named NinjaTrader 8.
Right-click and rename it to:
NinjaTrader 8 OLD
Important: Do not delete this folder — it contains your workspaces, strategies, and templates.
Step #3: Uninstall NinjaTrader
Open Control Panel > Programs and Features.
Locate NinjaTrader 8, click it, and select Uninstall.
Step #4: Remove Program Files
Navigate to:
C:\Program Files (x86)
If a folder named NinjaTrader 8 exists, delete it.
Step #5: Reboot Your VPS
Restart your VPS to ensure all files are cleared from memory.
Step #6: Reinstall NinjaTrader
Download the latest version from:
Right-click the installer and choose Run as Administrator.
Select Complete installation when prompted.
Step #7: Restore Your Settings
Return to your Documents folder.
You’ll now see two folders:
NinjaTrader 8 (newly created by the installer)
NinjaTrader 8 OLD (your original settings)
Rename the new folder to:
NinjaTrader 8 Fresh
Rename NinjaTrader 8 OLD back to:
NinjaTrader 8
Why keep the "NinjaTrader 8 Fresh" folder? This newly installed, untouched folder is a clean baseline — a known-good copy of NinjaTrader's default files and structure with none of your old configuration in it. Keeping it around gives you two things: something to compare against if you suspect a specific file in your restored settings is corrupted, and a working fallback you can switch to (by renaming it back to NinjaTrader 8) if restoring your old settings brings the original problem back. Once you've confirmed your restored platform is stable for a while, you can safely delete the Fresh folder if you no longer need it.
Your full NinjaTrader environment — including all strategies, templates, and workspaces — is now restored.
Need Assistance?
Our support team is available 24/7. If you have any questions or run into issues, open a support ticket from your QuantVPS dashboard and we'll get back to you as quickly as possible.