Can't Get SideKick98 to work on new laptop 2

[Skyline151]

I've been a SideKick 98 user since the beginning and have installed it on several computers as I've upgraded hardware. It seems I've always had some bugs to work through with multiple installs. This forum has been my install savior. Right now I am trying to install on a Windows 10 Home 64 bit laptop. My last laptop was the same configuration and I was able to use successfully SideKick 98.

I can get SideKick to work in Safe Mode, but in normal mode it won't get beyond the splash screen with the blue bars when trying to open.

I'll list what I've done and hopefully someone can point out a step I missed.
- uninstalled McAfee that came as a pre-install
- disconnected from the internet
- disabled Windows Defender Firewall
- installed successfully in Safe Mode (I had tried to install in normal mode from both CD and from install files I copied to File Explorer)
- the install was in the C:\ directory
- set compatibility to Windows XP Service Pack 2 (also unsuccessfully tried Service Pack 3 and Windows 8 compatibility modes)
- set to Run as Administrator
- disabled all Start Up programs/utilities in Task Manager
- uninstalled and re-installed SideKick at least 10 times ... so far
- ran CC Cleaner to clean up files and Registry after each uninstall
- ran Windows Disk Cleaner after each uninstall
- completed a Re-Start after every change

Right now about the only thing I've not done is wait 24 hours!

I hope someone sees something I've overlooked.

Jeanne

 

[Skyline151]

I forgot to mention I did install the two patch files.

Jeanne

 

[Skyline151]

Waiting almost 24 hours didn't help. I've uninstalled, cleaned and reinstalled from Safe Mode several more times. I've repeated all of the above steps and also created a shortcut for the install files and run the setup file in the Disk 1 folder as administrator. Compatibility for the setup file in Safe Mode defaulted to Windows 7. I changed it to the only XP option which was Service Pack 3 (not Service Pack 2). Still no joy, but I've not given up.

I did see that my old laptop with working SideKick is running Windows 10 1809 and the new laptop that won't start SideKick beyond the splash screen with the blue bar is running Windows 10 1909. The new laptop is offering me the Windows 10 2004 version

 

[Skyline151]

I gave up and have returned the new PC that would allow SideKick 98 to get beyond the start-up splash screen. I tried every suggestion I could find on this forum and eventually started to remove all software one-by-one that I had installed. Nothing worked. The new laptop and the old laptop eventually both had the same version of Windows 10 Home 64-bit 1909. SideKick on the old laptop works fine.

FYI, the new laptop was a Lenovo Legion 540 and the old laptop a Lenovo IdeaPad 510. Last fall I successfully installed SideKick on a new Dell laptop running Windows 10 Home 64-bit.

Anyway, the problem with the new laptop is no more as I returned it. I'll try again in a few months to buy a new laptop but for now I am very tired of installing and re-installing software! Oh, and all those re-boots ...

 

[DougSilver]

Hey Skyline--I have been an ardent user of Sidekick going way back to version 2. I have always used it infrequently at work and mainly to track business contacts and make notes for conversations I have had. Over the last several years the company I work for has upgraded Windows and/or the computer I use and at some point SKW2 wouldn't install (probably when they went to Win7-64bit) and I moved to SK98. That worked fine for a while until they upgraded to Win10. Once that happened I was still able to install but the program wouldn't consistently start. It would get to the splash screen and the blue bars would start and then nothing. I was sometimes able to get it to fully load by quitting one or more programs that were running in the background--usually it was Ring Central that did the trick. But lately I can NEVER get Sidekick to get past the splash screen. I haven't tried starting in Safe Mode since I am not even sure that the local policy that the company maintains on the client computers would even allow that.

The need for looking at my old contact info has declined over the last couple of years so losing the ability to use Sidekick anymore is not all that bad. In the rare event where I really need to find something about a contact I can always load Sidekick on an old laptop I have that still runs WinXP but that is not likely to happen.

So it is obviously time (and a damn shame) to finally admit that trying to get Sidekick to work on modern machines with 64-bit systems. Goodbye old friend.

Doug

 

[Skyline151]

Wonders never cease! After failing to get SideKick 98 to install on the new Lenovo Legion 540 laptop using Windows 10 Home 64-bit ver. 1909 (all attempts described above) and giving up and returning the laptop, I bought an HP Pavilion using Windows 10 Home 64-bit ver. 1909.

I executed only the basic mandatory HP laptop setup steps and then installed SideKick98 and the patch files before installing any other software. I transferred the userdata file and a miracle occurred (at least it was a miracle for me). The program starts immediately. I am not running it as administrator. I then began the install of other software, e.g., Office, Quicken, CCleaner. The following day SideKick98 opened immediately and all appears well.

I'm leery of the next forced Windows update to ver. 2004 and will just keep my fingers crossed.

 

[DougSilver]

Kind of the same thing happened for me. As previously noted I never had a problem installing Sidekick--the main key to doing so is to NOT have it in the Programs folder but, instead, have everything in its own folder immediately under C:\. But I gave up actually getting the program to start past the splash screen on my work computer running Win 10 64-bit. I really think it has more to do with all of the stuff the Admin folks have running in the background and/or the other startup programs. But now that I am working mainly from home I installed SK98 on my home machine--also Win 10 64-bit. Installed fine and I copied all of my personal card files and, voila, the program opens after only a momentary pause on the splash screen. Finally getting the program running again makes me realize how much I missed it. The most valuable feature for me is the ability to have the Contact Log for each entry in the cardfile so that I can track previous discussions with contacts or add any other useful notes and info. I had not come across any other contact managers that were so slick in being able to do this.

 

[DougSilver]

Here is one other quirk I recently discovered since Sidekick started displaying the same problem on my home computer as it had on my work computer. The splash screen would start up and then nothing. So I stumbled on something by right-clicking with Task Manager where you could eventually get to a step where you can "Analyze Wait Chain" on a given process. In both my home computer and work computer there was a process that sidekick was waiting for. On my work computer it was some Adobe helper and in my home computer it was run32dll. In both cases when I ended the process that Sidekick was waiting on it opened right up. I guess all of these quirks and workarounds are for the die-hards like me that would like to be able to somehow keep using Sidekick.