Component layout initial setting?

[SolSearcher]

I would like to use the 'hide out of stock' option in the component layout for all of my products. This feature hides any choices from the drop down box that are out of stock.
The problem is I have 600+ products, I looked for a global setting but couldn't find one so started to manually open each product and tick the 'Hide out of stock' layout option. Actinic crashed after about 40 products so I restarted Actinic and after changing 20 products would restart Actinic to prevent crashes. My right elbow and wrist had enough by about 100 products, it was taking about 30 seconds to change each product and I lost the will to live.
There must be an initial setting that I can change in a Variable or Condition within the component layout.
Could somebody point me in the right direction?

[Duncan Rounding]

Backup.
Export the catalog, open in Excel and filter the first column by 'contains' 'component'.
Then look in column T (Hide Out of Stock Options) and change all in the list below to 1.
Save as csv and import into Actinic again.

[SolSearcher]

Morning Duncan,

This is going to save me hours of work! Thankyou very much for this information. I'll let you know how it goes.

Jay

[SolSearcher]

I have exported with comma separated and filtered the first column to display Component in the T column I have changed all fields to 1.
when I save the edited file and try to import I get an error:

A blank field was found in the first line of the import file

I have tried this 4 times now and also compacted the database before exporting.

Any pointers? It's really close.

[Duncan Rounding]

Delete the empty row just under the header rows and try again.

[SolSearcher]

I've been at work from 07:00 till 19:00 and was keen to get home and try this. It has worked a dream and has really saved me a lot of hassle.
There were 3 empty rows in total one below the headers and two on lines 89 & 90.
I really appreciate you getting back so soon.

Thanks a lot Duncan

[SolSearcher]

I have just tweeked this process, it works and is really easy.

Make a backup of Acatalog, then open 'Product Properties' the second to last column is named 'bflag11' the default entry is '0' select that column and and then do a 'find and replace' find 0 and replace with -1

save the database and open Actinic, job done.

[Duncan Rounding]

Be aware that the meaning of the values in many of the fields in the Product Properties table is dependant on the nType value in the table. In this case I don't think bFlag11 has multkiple uses but other flags and string fields certainly do. So makre sure the nType is the same for all instances you change.