Hi,
I have the 6 install disks for Wordstar for Windows v2.0 but when I try to load on my Windows 2000 system it just states 'Unable to read from disk' Any ideas or is this a known problem? I have doc's on an old Wordstar for Windows v2.0 disk I am trying to read but can't so reckoned I needed to install this on my Windows 2000 system to do this. Any advice appreciated!
Thanks
Mike
Hi Mike,
The installation of WSWin 2 on Windows 2000 can sometimes fail. I don't have details of what goes wrong and it's a while since I last tried an installation - I generally just copy the installed program from one PC to the next as I upgrade.
Having said that, your problem sounds more like a faulty floppy disk. Have you tried them on another PC?
Regards
Mike
Hi Mike,
Many thanks for getting back! I have tried on another PC with Win 98 but same thing. I can see all the files on the floppy's using DIR but Win 98 or 2000 just isn't reading them when trying to install. I don't have the installed program to copy from another PC unfortunately. Is there any place I could download v2.0 you are aware of as I am desperate to read the files on my old wordstar disk!?
Regards
Mike
Hi Mike,
WSWin2 isn't available as a download. It is available for sale, and the information about that is posted at http://www.wordstar2.com/cbabbage/wordstar. People have gotten their packages about two weeks after ordering.
It is possible that your install disk 1 is corrupted. I can upload a copy of that original disk for you to try out, if you wish. It will be on a password-protected directory, so I'd have to send you the instructions for getting it. Let me know what you want to do.
deedee
Purchase options for all WordStar versions are listed at http://www.wordstar.org/wordstar/pages/where.htm.
Try copying all of the floppies to a folder on your hard disk. If you can get the filles off the disks you can install from the hard disk. It may also show up exactly which files are causing the problem so you can get just those replaced.
Cheers
Mike
Hi Deedee,
Yeah, that would be a great help if you could just upload disk1 and I can see if that helps to get the whole thing installed. Let me know?
Best regards
Mike
Hi Mike,
I sent the information on downloading WSWin2 Disk 1 to you privately. I don't know if we get a notice when a private message arrives, so this is to let you know to look there.
deedee :)
Hi Deedee, Thanks I was able to download disk 1 and unzip okay but when I double click on setup.exe file I get a setup message everytime as follows:
Could not open the file named 'C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\DISK1\WSWIN.DL_'
Any ideas???
Thanks
Mike
Hi Mike,
I'm sorry to hear you're having problems with it :(.
What setup.exe is supposed to do, I believe, is decompress that file and install it as a dll in c:\windows. One thing that happens sometimes with ms-win installations -- some of the files may be hidden or read-only.
I zipped the disk to avoid that problem, but I read somewhere that the ms-win installer may do that during the installation process itself on older software. Since it had never happened to me, I didn't pay too close attention to the article. But your not being able to open it during setup makes me wonder if it happened to you.
You might check the attributes and make sure that none of the files are hidden ("h") or read only ("r"), but are archived ("a").
deedee
Hi Deedee, Checked the properties of the files and all show as archived and not hidden or read only!!
All showing in my C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\install directory and when I click on setup it asks if I want full, minimum or custom setup and after that comes back with 'could not open the file....' error as indicated above.... so I'm at a loss at to why Win98 doesn't appear to like the wswin.dl_ file ?
Thanks
Mike
Monday 18 August 2003
I assume you have properly set up your directory structure for installation. WSWin will install from a hard drive or CD but files from each disk must have their own folder sharing a common root and named Disk1, Disk2, Disk3, Disk4, Disk5, Disk6. The files from each of the WSWin disks have to be placed in the respective directories.
Phil
Sorry i've been away the past few weeks! I have created a directory with specific folders for each of the 6 disks and tried to copy all the file information across. Quite a lot of the files would not copy, don't know why, from each of the disks but a lot of them did. Tried setup and came back with error on WSWINAPI.DLL incorrect no of bytes written to disk. Is it possible to obtain this one file which I guess is major for WSWIN as I guess it's corrupt in some way?
Thanks
Mike
Hi Mike,
The problem seems to be moving around from file to file. Also, your inability to copy all the files suggests to me one of two possibilities -- (1) you need to buy a new WSWin because your whole set of disks has problems, or (2) the problem is in your target computers.
You need all the files for installation. So if you weren't able to get them all copied, you will likely not get a working installation.
When did you last check your computer(s) for possible corruption on your hard drives (thorough surface scan), or viruses? Have you scanned your original installation diskettes for physical problems?
deedee
Saturday 13 September 2003
A list of your missing files would help.
One trick to try is to do a non repair (turn off automatic repair) Scandisk of the faulty floppy. In the past this has enabled me to get files off a disk which is faulty if I copy the files immediately after doing the Scandisk. I suspect this gets around disk failure when the failure is a timing fault.
Phil
As I suggested some time ago, and Phil has again, after trying to copy your floppies to your hard disk, get a list together of which files you couldn't copy, or if it''s easier those that did copy, and we may be able to fill in the gaps.
You can use a DOS window to do this and the commands:
DIR disk1 /b >> filelist.txt
DIR disk2 /b >> filelist.txt
DIR disk3 /b >> filelist.txt
etc, etc.
filelist.txt will contain the total contents of your files copied from the floppies, assuming you put them in floders called disk1, etc.
Hi,
Many thanks for the updates.
File contents of the Disks as follows:
Disk1
BMP2META FL_ 5,774 03-01-94 12:00a
MSCOMSTF DL_ 37,722 03-01-94 12:00a
MSCUISTF DL_ 41,992 03-01-94 12:00a
MSDETSTF DL_ 13,519 03-01-94 12:00a
MSINSSTF DL_ 36,867 03-01-94 12:00a
MSSHLSTF DL_ 8,151 03-01-94 12:00a
MSUILSTF DL_ 3,611 03-01-94 12:00a
PMGRPAPI DL_ 2,958 03-01-94 12:00a
README WRI 31,232 03-01-94 12:00a
SETUP EXE 24,624 03-01-94 12:00a
SETUP IN_ 5,313 03-01-94 9:45a
SETUP LST 499 03-01-94 12:00a
SETUP2 EX_ 30,732 03-01-94 12:00a
SETUPN IN_ 4,321 03-01-94 12:00a
W4W48F DL_ 57,720 03-01-94 12:00a
W4W48T DL_ 61,354 03-01-94 12:00a
WSW3D DL_ 9,410 03-01-94 12:00a
WSWIN DL_ 1,076,587 03-01-94 12:00a
Disk2
WSMACRUN DL_ 22,370 03-01-94 12:00a
WSWDLGS DL_ 24,432 03-01-94 12:00a
WSWFLT IN_ 4,892 03-01-94 12:00a
WSWGRPH DL_ 19,123 03-01-94 12:00a
WSWIN CF_ 6,685 03-01-94 12:00a
WSWIN EX_ 3,585 03-01-94 12:00a
WSWINI TX_ 9,901 03-01-94 12:00a
WSWKBD DR_ 5,051 03-01-94 12:00a
WSWLANG DL_ 17,309 03-01-94 12:00a
WSWMAC DL_ 9,846 03-01-94 12:00a
WSWVCR01 DL_ 4,424 03-01-94 12:00a
XDLEGACY TX_ 6,528 03-01-94 12:00a
XTANSI TX_ 5,231 03-01-94 12:00a
XTFMTASC TX_ 6,474 03-01-94 12:00a
XTLEGACY TX_ 6,521 03-01-94 12:00a
XTRAWASC TX_ 5,315 03-01-94 12:00a
XTWSWIN TX_ 6,621 03-01-94 12:00a
XTWW TXL 8,547 03-01-94 12:00a
XTWW XTL 8,547 03-01-94 12:00a
WSWINAPI DL_ 9,732 03-01-94 12:00a
COPYOF~1 DLL 9,732 03-01-94 12:00a Copy of Wswinapi.dll
Disk3
W4W06T DL_ 23,975 03-01-94 12:00a
GIFIMP FL_ 8,803 03-01-94 12:00a
HPGL FL_ 26,037 03-01-94 12:00a
IDWKS TI_ 13,592 03-01-94 12:00a
LOTUSIMP FL_ 7,483 03-01-94 12:00a
RBRTF DA_ 607,692 03-01-94 12:00a
TIFF FL_ 17,960 03-01-94 12:00a
W4W03F DL_ 16,878 03-01-94 12:00a
W4W03T DL_ 16,692 03-01-94 12:00a
W4W05F DL_ 35,196 03-01-94 12:00a
W4W05T DL_ 31,950 03-01-94 12:00a
W4W06F DL_ 22,731 03-01-94 12:00a
Disk4
CARET$ DA_ 208 03-01-94 12:00a
Disk5 and 6
No files could be copied (unable to read files)
From that list it looks like you're missing about 75% of the full set! Getting a new set of disks from eBay may be your best option!
I'll try to work out which of the files are essential rather than optional, like maillist and correct grammar. That may make getting you a working program easier.
Many thanks... I guess a lot of the files must be corrupt in someway as the disks are a few years old now! I am looking for a very basic level install as the Wordstar v2.0 data I have on a couple of floppies I just need to be able to access/read!
Thanks
Mike
Thursday 18 September 2003
If reading file text is all you want (that is not graphics), then Lotus Word Pro and Star Office come with a WSWin filter.
Phil
Hi Phil,
But like all the other import options for WSWin files they only import the page frame text, headers and footers. If you've used child text frames you won't get the text from them.
Hi, A friend of mine has Star Office 5.2 but we could'nt find a filter for WSWin! Tried to open using 'Text' filter and it did open but there were lots of '#' signs and a large amount of text was missing where the #'s were!! Getting close though :) Any other ideas, would the emulator help in reading the text data, or would a new set of WSWin disks be the only answer?
Thanks
Mike
Hi Mike,
Your friend may need to re-run the setup to add the extra filters, not all of them get installed by default. Have a look to see if he has Legacy mentioned and if he has, try that one.
Checking eBay for a set of disks for WSWin, or a CD for WordStar Personal Writer will be your only way to get text back out of child frames if you've used them. None of the import filters, as far as I'm aware, offer any more than the main page frame text import.
Thursday 25 September 2003
Running quick tests on a file with letterhead with a child frame inside the header.
Lotus Word Pro 97 (Win-OS/2) imports the body text and the child frame with text in the header but loses text in header frame.
Desribe 5 (OS/2) imports the body text and the text in the header frame, but does not import the child frame.
Star Office 5.1a (OS/2) imports everything, including the child frame.
The only difference in the programs is Star Office has an import only function. All use the Mastersoft filters.
Phil
Hi Phil,
That's interesting! It's a while ago that I tried out these options, all on Windows. I don't remember getting child frame text with StarOffice, but I don't have it installed on my day-to-day PC so can't recheck right now. I'll see if I still have it on my other PC, which hasn't been switched on for ages, and give it a retry to see if there are any differences between the OS/2 and Windows imports.
Hi, I've loaded StarOffice 5.2 in full and has about 90 import filters but Legacy is not one of them! I've gone through most of them and can't get my .wsd file to load properly. I reckon I loose over half the text that should be present! What filter did you use in S/O 5.1 to import your .wsd text file?
Thanks
Mike
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
I have StarOffice 5.2 and StarOffice 7.0 on the Win98SE system with which I am posting this. Both open WSWin files using the WordStar (Win) filter. Note you must do a custom installation of the Mastersoft filters (w4w) to get them.
Since the format is also used by onGo, there is also a Legacy onGo setting for the filter.
Phil