Why do .SOF files sometimes get made instead of .POF? How can I force a .POF?

[Altera_Forum]

I am still learning Quartus II 12 and I'm building simple designs, like 4 inputs that get and-ed and or-ed and then output on Cyclone II devices. Most of the time Quartus makes a .pof, but sometimes it doesn't. Why? How can I fix it? It's not a license issue, no warnings or errors, just no .pof.

[Altera_Forum]

Have a look at the assembler report. There is a report that lists all the generated files, and a messages report that should tell you why certain files haven't been generated.

[Altera_Forum]

All it said was it was configured to make a .sof. So I went through the device configuration and saw "Use configuration device:" was unchecked, so I checked it and poof, a .pof.  

 Thanks.

[Altera_Forum]

Well I'm back again. Once again I have made a project that does not produce a .pof file, only .sof. 

 I tried my solution from last time and it didn't work.  I then copied, line for line, the .qsf file from a working project. It did not work.  Is there an undocumented setting to turn POF generation on and off? If so, can someone please give me a hint as to where to find it? Thanks.

[Altera_Forum]

Update: 

Choosing a configuration device like EPCS4 makes the GUI tool produce a .pof. However, the command line tools still only makes a .sof And the GUI and CL tool make difference sized .sof files... perhaps they are seeing different config devices?