New computer

[ideasguy]

Well, its my grandsons one year old W7 cast off actually
He specified all the parts for a new high spec Gaming Computer - I merely funded his project   

I have a network setup in the office, so Ive added the W7 into that environment.
Then the fun started.
Ive now moved all my Outlook email accounts to the new computer and have been receiving mail.
Currently moving the remainder of the Outlook pst files.

The problems:
When I purchased the software on my XP machine, I bought them as downloads.
When I go to the new machine, go looking for a download on the internet, I have to upgrade to latest version.
Snagit: I had Snagit 8 on my XP.
I was able to buy an upgrade, and downloaded the latest version - Snagit 11.
Started it up and Oh My My
What have they done to a lovely program?
I'm horrified. I use Snagit extensively e.g. for adding balloon help to snapshots for the User Guide.
It used to be fun - very quick and easy. This does not look good

Photoshop Elements:
The upgrade for this is costly. May keep on using it on my old computer in the meantime

My own software?
I use Installshield for creating distributions projects then using the Build command to create the files you see on a (e.g.) Bank Genie CD and create the file for downloaded purchases.
Hit a few snags, so it took me half a day to do Bank Genie Pro. I hope the others will be easier

Tried making a change to a program in Bank Genie and went to compile it on the new computer - again many things to be resolved.
This is going to be slow

The good news is there is such a difference in performace on my new computer - nice big disk.
It has 4 GB of Memory but theres an additional slot which will hopefully take another 4GB.
Memory makes the biggest difference to computer performance in my opinion. On the XP it was stretched to the limit when I had a number of programs opened at one time. e.g. when doing the Bank Genie User Guide, I would have Outlook, IE, Snagit, Foxpro (x2), Net Objects Fusion, Bank Genie Pro minimum. I use Symantec End Point protection for AV and firewall, and it takes a huge amount of memory, running in the background. It will be interesting to see how the W7 copes with that lot!

Now you know why Ive been a bit quiet on the forum this past few days

[Palustris]

Which Photoshop Elememts do you have?

[ideasguy]

Version 9 Eric (bought and paid for as they say)

[NightHawk]

All I can say George is - good luck with all that!

I've been there and done that many many times in the past, and it is NOT fun.

Software upgrades can be a bit of a shocker too - as you have already found out.  When you've used particular programs for a lot of years, and you upgrade your Operating System, those older programs don't always perform well, or even install, on newer PCs.  Program upgrades are usually inevitable.

Adobe products, such as your Photoshop Elements, are never cheap upgrades so I can understand your concerns there.

I used to use Elements until I was fortunate enough to be able to purchase Photoshop CS5 last year - much more expensive than Elements.
This too has now been updated to version CS6, and the upgrade is still in the hundreds of pounds range.  Needless to say, I will not be forking out for that upgrade (unless I win the lottery  ).

Adobe have introduced a monthly subscription service to have access to all of their 'Creative Suite' (CS) software - currently about £49 per month I think, but unless you use all of those programs it's not worth the outlay.  If you only use one of their programs then over a year you could have bought it outright for the subscription cost over that same period.

Anyway, it's lucky that you can still use your older PC and the software on it, if not a bit of an inconvenience.  It would be better to have everything working on your W7 PC, but you can only do so much 

[ideasguy]

Thanks for that Laurie. Its how a) 32 bit programs are now installed in Program files (X86) and b) the user profile is in a different folder structure on W7 that is causing me a lot of work, but I made good progress yesterday.
Now I'm ready to FTP some changes to the product support website so I now have to get CuteFTP working on W7. Again I bought that software for XP. Fingers crossed.

[Palustris]

You can run Windows 7 in XP mode, but how.....................

[ideasguy]

Thanks Eric. Rather than rock the boat, I'd prefer to use it in W7 mode.

Update on previous message - I had CuteFTP 7 and had to upgrade to CuteFTP 9 (over 35$ including tax)
I'm now over that hurdle and have published updated versions of Bank Genie 4 and Bank Genie Pro for downloading by new customers.

[Eric Hardy]

My heat bleeds, George  . Now you will understand the reason that I am still running my very ancient desktop using Windows XP. I am dreading the day when it finally packs up! For anything really demanding I use my laptop which is much more powerful.

Eric

[NightHawk]

Bear in mind also, that any new Windows PCs now will come preinstalled with Windows 8 Operating System - something else to learn 

I've not looked at the specs for W8 so I don't know what alterations/enhancements Microsoft have made to it.

I never bother to upgrade my current PC when new Operating Systems arrive.  I'm running W7 which works fine for me, but if I need to renew the whole PC for any reason, then it will have the latest OS anyway, so there's not much choice then but to just deal with it.

[ideasguy]

Lovely to hear from you Eric! I still have my XP on my desk - now claimed by James! He teaches me things - the world of uTube etc and brings up websites he and his dad have found with games.

That's my philosophy Laurie

Every time I hear of a new Windows OS I panic in case its something earthshattering like the change from XP to Vista
Now THAT was a REAL nightmare for us unfortunate software developers
As for W8, all my Bank Genie, Ideas Genie and Flower Genie software install nicely and run on it What a relief

[Palustris]

W8 is really only useful if you have Touch screen technology.