seriously OT: Bill Gates still greedy after all these years.

[J. Clarke]

If you want left-right scrolling then get an IBM. That wiggly-wheel nonesence is just a clumsy attempt to work around IBM's scrollpoint/trackpoint patent.

[J. Clarke]

And Windows 98 doesn't? ROF,L.

[Mark & Juanita]

.. but it's not just the OS. Depending on the SW he's running, he will also be on the hook for upgrading *that* to XP compatible as well (and no, not all 98 software will run under XP).

[Robert Bonomi]

*Practically* all will, _if_ you select 'Win98 compatibility mode', in the properties section.

[Tim Douglass]

The problem is that the more specialized your software and the more dependent you are on it the less likely you are to be able to move it. I have one package it would cost me over $500 to upgrade and all XP says when I try to install it is "No Windows programs on this disk". Compatibility mode is useless because XP just doesn't see the executable as a program. Works fine in 98, so I keep on using 98 for my main work machine.

Tim Douglass

[CyBrShRk]

"codepath" wrote in news:407b3c0e$ [e-mail]:

I wasn't replying to the security aspects of XP, was replying to the notion that XP is just a bloated version of Win9X with prettier graphics (altho the default XP 'Teletubbies" theme is far from prettier). I'm well aware of XP's shortcomings in the security issues, however it's still far better than any Win9X/ME product.

[Dave Hinz]

Oh, its not a bloated version of Windows 9x, that's what ME was for. It's the bloated version of Windows 2000 (also known as NT 5.0).

Maybe by longhorn, they'll be back to the security and stability of Windows 3.1's system. I'll be watching from the sidelines though, having given up on Microsoft and moved to mac and linux.

In a slight defense of Microsoft, expecting 10 year old software to work on a modern machine isn't all that realistic. I've made some old stuff for win95 or older work on my Linux box by running an old version of windows within a virtual machine (VMWare), which works flawlessly, but expecting backwards compatibility to extend to a decade or more is a bit much to expect. Better that they try (and they assure us that they are trying, despite appearances) to fix the bugs and security problems, than spend that time making current systems work with decade-old software.

[Mark Jerde]

??? TSRs & 640k ???

Win 3.x + networking = constant problems. I reinstalled Windows at least

100 times on the handful of machines I was responsible for.

-- Mark

[Dave Hinz]

Yup, it was secure until they added tcp/IP support... and note that I didn't say it's stability was all that good, just that they've been worse since.

See above ;)

Dave

[Greg]

If you are just looking for drive sharing there is a small DOS TSR that rides in about 60k and allows file sharing, unfortunately it doesn't "talk" FAT32 so I had to stop using it. I am still running 3 pure DOS machines tho. (MP3 players). They never crash, boot in seconds, don't need to be "shutdown" and the total software load will fit on a diskette, leaving more disk for tunes.

[bridger]

it's funny how often it does work. a lot of that old software is pretty simple and doesn't need much from the OS. I keep around and use a copy of cardfile.exe mined from windows 3.1 for use as a small standalone database. it has almost no features and has worked fine without complaining on every system I've had.

[Renata]

How 'bout the converse - expecting new sw to work on old hw? The gurus at work are installing Win2k on P166s w/64M of RAM.

Renata

-snip-

[Rick Chamberlain]

That is just silly. It's like expecting today's computer chips to function properly in a 10 year old Chevy. Ain't gonna happen.

[Tim Douglass]

Hmmm. That's one I should dredge up. I've tried for years to find a decent cardfile program for windows. I started using that in 3.1 and when it disappeared in 95 I switched to the cardfile in Sidekick, but that drags along all the rest of the Sidekick stuff. Cardfile was darn near perfect for keeping lists - books loaned and borrowed, insurance policy numbers and contact information, serial numbers of tools and date acquired - thousands of things that otherwise just get spread out over a huge number of places, making it impossible to retrieve what you need when you need it. I've always wondered why no one seems to make a really compact cardfile program with a simple interface and basic search capability. Once you start using something like that it becomes addictive.

Tim Douglass

[bridger]

I have installed winXP on several really old low spec machines- pentium 1 with 48 megs of ram kinda boxes- they're damn slow but seem to be stable.

[Mark & Juanita]

I know this is not exactly the same thing, but you might check out KeyNote You could set it up to do nearly what you describe, the only place it would be lacking would be search capability. I have started using it to keep track of magazine articles that I think I might want to use in the future as well as being a general organizational tool for all of my other files and notes.

[Phil Hansen]

Thanks. Looks good. Takes a bit of getting used to, bit quirky with adding nodes etc.

[Phil Hansen]

The new version 1.5.6 has extensive search facilities. Upgrade now You can searh across all nodes and notes. Getting used to the program now and like it a lot

[Mark & Juanita]

I'm currently running 1.6.1.

[Phil Hansen]

Sorry typo, should be 1.6.5.