Datastar/Reportstar

[bradleys]

Is anybody in the entire world still using these programs, apart from myself?

[degustibus]

yes.

& I just ran into a problem.

DS runs okay on all my versions of windows, including 2000 - however, on 2000 it terminates oddly -- opps, doesn't run on WinME at all. ReportStar won't run on win2000--at least the version I use in a batch file.  

That was the problem I was going to report-- Data Star (as I just discovered) and ReportStar do not run on WinME at all-- can't find the files, want to look for A: and so on.

I'm aggravated because I just  had to do an upgrade on a semi flakey Win98SE (which ran DS & RS nicely) to Win98ME -- and in the process seem to have lost my ability to run these programs altogether.

I still have a couple of older machines that run win98, but it would be nice to be able to do this work all in one place.  Without having to reinstall all my apps.

Why do I still use these old programs?  Dang, up to now, the same reason I've used WordStar since, what? 1984-5? Kaypro2 days -- I have all my templates set, don't need anything fancy, and it's quick and tidy. and usually trouble-free.

[PGAGA]

Monday 04 October 2004

You have just encountered one of the features of WinME, a reduced DOS support.  I use what is known as the PureDOS setup to boot to a Win98SE command prompt to use certain programs.

Do a Web Search for PureDOS to find the instructions for creating this.

Phil

[bradleys]

Thank you for the feedback.  I too have three computers on the go for the sake of Wordstar, Datastar and Reportstar.  It was when I hit Windows 98 that I first encountered problems.  Things are okay on Windows 95, but the 98 machine is faster and I would like to transfer.

I will follow the suggestions and see what happens.  Willl report back.

[PGAGA]

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

You certainly could use the PureDOS instructions to create a Win95 boot on your system.  Or if you have a boot manager, you could create one that way.

Phil