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Upgrading

Started by epic, November 06, 2003, 08:15:41 PM

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epic

Hi all.

On a whim this morning, I asked Google to search for WordStar and ended up here. I've been using WordStar since the early 80s. It came free on my 1983 Kaypro 4, if I remember rightly.

For the past eight years or so I've used the Windows 2 version to produce tabloid-sized newsletters for hiking and enviromental groups. I have Windows ME (a terrible operating system) on my ancient ACER. But I moved my even older hard drive into the ACER. as a Drive D.

That drive uses Windows 95, and contains all my WordStar files. The time has come to upgrade again.

My question is what kind of problems am I likely to face in continuing to use WordStar For Windows with the latest Windows operating system(s)?

Can I continue to just move my ancient Drive D?

Is there something better I should try?

Complicating my decision is that my WordStar floppies won't load, which is why I moved my old hard drive into my then new ACER about the time Clinton was reelected.

Forum Admin

#1
Hi, and welcome!

If you upgrade Windows to 2000 or XP you may start to see some problems. These may or may not affect you, depending on how you use WSWin.
  • You can't assign new macros to keyboard commands or to toolbar buttons.
  • The font selection dropdown list in the format bar and in the styles definition dialog box can get confused. You can work around this by scrolling to the very end of the font list and then back up to the font you want.
  • The installation program may not work. The work-around here is to copy your existing installation including the files in the Windows folder.
I think that's the main problems covered. WSWin will still work and may be fine for you if these problems are unlikely to concern you.
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deedee

#2
In addition, you can't create new bookmarks. The bookmarks and macros you have already created continue to work, however.

Those people relying on WSWin2 have suggested maintaining a win9x installation in order to have a fully functioning copy.

deedee
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Reg. Linux User #327485

epic

#3
I followed your instructions, and Wordstar works in my new Windows XP machine. However, Spellcheck and hyphenation won't load, and I really need them for the newsletters.

I have tried to move my Wordstar folder to the "D" drive (my former Windows ME hard drive - still has windows ME installed, but is not set up as a boot drive); launching Wordstar from the D drive does not work (the ws*.* files are still in Windows XP folder).

When I was running Windows ME, Wordstar ran from my former hard drive (a windows95 drive); only a couple of the ini files were installed in the Windows ME. Do I need to "install" Wordstar onto the D drive - (not just copy the program folder, but also copy the ws*.* files) to get it to work?

Or, other ideas?

Thanks very much.


deedee

#4
I'm afraid you've misunderstood what I meant by needing a win9x installation.

WSWin will not fully function on an XP system. In order to have a fully functional copy of WSWin on a Windows system, you must run it under win3x, win9x, or winme. That is, in your case, winme must be the operating system running your computer. It must be bootable and booted up. Having the WSWin files on the same partition or hard drive as a winme installation is not sufficient.

That said, I believe you should get spelling and hyphenation on an XP system. I'm not aware of any reports saying that those two features are broken under XP. I don't use XP (or even Windows) anymore, so I can't say more than that.

I have a fully functioning WSWin with Wine on a Linux system. Most often, however, those using it on a Linux system do so with Wabi loaded with win3x for a fully functioning WSWin.
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Reg. Linux User #327485

epic

#5
No, I understood that Windows 98/ME would have to be the boot drive... however, the less than fully functional wordstar is fine, for the most part. Except that spelling and hyphenation are really important to my work...

But thanks for explaining. It gives me optimism that spelling and hyphenation haven't been reported as problems by others.

Thanks again...

deedee

#6
The other thing I'm wondering is whether or not you copied all the WSWin2 files you needed from the winme Windows folder to the XP Windows folder. Judy Miner in her "WordStar for Windows How To" has a section on what needs to be transferred and where it goes. There is a copy of her book in Adobe Acrobat PDF format for download on the WordStar Users Group Community site (http://www.wordstar2.com/WordStar_Users/index.php) in the Downloads section under WordStar for Windows. You may want to review that to be sure you got everything you needed when you did the transfer.
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Reg. Linux User #327485

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#7
WSWin also works without problems on windows NT up to version 4, it's only the 2000 and XP versions that cause problems.

The simplest installation procedure is to just copy C:\WSWIN to your new disk drive, as you've done. You can use D: if you want, but you will have a little more work to do.

If you do copy the installation, rather than do a fresh install, which may not work under Windows 2000 or later, you should also copy the wsw*.* ?and wsml*.* files from your Windows folder to your new windows or winnt folder. You'll find the full file list at http://www.wordstar.org/wswin/kb/Q1040.htm and a list of what the files are for at http://www.wordstar.org/wswin/kb/Q1007.htm

If you've moved the installation drive, from C: to D: you'll need to do a find and replace in these files to update references to the old program folder (usually C:\WSWIN) to the new folder (for example D:\WSWIN2). Many of the references will be comments, so you don't need to change them all, only those that don't have a semi-colon at the start of the line.

Once you've done that, run the WSWin macro WSWREGDB, as instructed in http://www.wordstar.org/wswin/kb/Q1040.htm to complete the reinstallation.

Spelling should work fine, and I'm not aware of hyphenation problems. It could be that WSWin is still looking on the C: drive for some of its files.

You may want to take a look at http://www.wordstar.org/wswin/pages/wswin.htm. Judy's book is here too, in WSWin, on-line (HTML), and Acrobat versions. This is well worth the read.
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epic

#8
:-/

Well, you were both right - I had not copied over the all important dictionary files for spelling and hyphenation to work!

Thanks.