migrating Sidekick onto windows XP

[Searena]

Good day Gentlemen
Sorry to intrude on your forum, but I would really like to help an old sidekick user migrate from a version which he has running on an old win98 machine onto a newer XP machine.
I know nothing about this particular piece of software, and must first ask some stupid basic questions:-
1.Can I download a suitable version for free from somewhere.
2.Can the directory containing the current Sk files be copied across to an XP machine and suitable registry entries etc added/configured, and if so what are these entries..
3.What, if any data conversion is required to install on the "new " version.
4.The two machines are networked through a small inhouse server. Can one set up a remote session on the XP machine and use SK across the network.
Thanking you in anticipation
Alan

 

[james33]

Dear Searena,

Good day and welcome, I don't think this is an exclusive forum, especially when it is in relation to Starfish Sidekick matters.
Enough said about that now on to your questions:

1. Click on this link faq807-3761
2. Not a very good idea and unnecessary when you have read the answer to 1.
3. Depends on the version, anything after Sidekick95 is immediately available to the newer versions from within Sidekick if you go to
File|Open|Files of type
and check in drop down there for > .sdb (for Cardfiles)
4. Sidekick is NOT a Network enabled program, though you could if it is closed on one machine, copy the relevant files over to the other machine (using eg SecondCopy) and then back over when you have finished, but you would need to copy ALL the necessary files including .ini if they have been altered at any time.....
Better not to try unless you want to lose data or corrupt data..

Furthermore, read the Faq pages at my website, the address is available here on the same page mentioned before:
faq807-3761

Good luck and ask any Sidekick related questions you need to; that is what this forum is for.

Regards Jim
Check the FAQ area of this Forum for answers (If there are any FAQs!) , it could save you a lot of time and effort!

 

[Searena]

Thanks Jim
I will follow your recommendations and see where I end up.
Murphy's law always gives me a hard time , so I bet I will be calling again. Either way I will let you guys know how successful I am.
thanks
Alan

 

[Searena]

Good day Gentlemen
i down loaded sk99 from the web and installed it without any hassles on to an XP box. I was able to import the old text file as a card file and it seemed to open up OK, i.e. the guy can atleast get access to the information. However the feature to add a card does not seem to work correctly, and editing the text just seems to loose the card all together.

The help files arent much good in this case.

Question... is there a way of converting an old text file into the correct new format? or does one have to sit and recapture all the data manually.
rgds
Alan

 

[james33]

Dear Alan,

First of all is the cardfile read only or have you Saved As the imported file as an SKCard with a different name?
(That would remove any read-only attribute)

When you try to add a new Card (i.e. Press Ctrl+A) does the dialog box come up?

Could you just be a little more descriptive, for example what does the following mean:

the feature to add a card does not seem to work correctly, and editing the text just seems to loose the card all together.[/color red]

Please tell me what you feel is not working correctly with the add card dialog and how do you mean lose; does it disappear or does an error message come up?

+Your Question... is there a way of converting an old text file into the correct new format? or does one have to sit and recapture all the data manually.
Answer is NO the data can be imported/opened in Sidekick99 and then saved under a new name as an .SKCard

Regards
Jim

 

[james33]

Dear Alan,

I have only just noticed the "Good day Gentlemen" opening on your first post, perhaps you missed some of the other posts here and failed to observe the presence of some very 'female' 'gentlemen'....
I suggest:
'Folks' 'People' 'guys'(even that would have been better)
We are in the 21st Century remember....

Regards ;-)
Jim

 

[Searena]

Hi everybody
Apologies for the political incorrectness of my salutations.

I attempted this morning to install the program on the persons machine who is actually requiring it, and found that the install shield soon gave the error message " The installation has detected that a previous installation or un-installation requires that you restart your computer". Restarting didnt help.
I know that a "previous hacker had tried to install an old version onto the machine, and had fiddled with FCB values from what I can gather. I deleted any old SK directories and files ( apart from one called skdll.dll) I could find,
but to no avail.
I have not yet looked but I suspect that there are other entries lurking in perhaps win.ini file or something like that. Suggestions would be appreciated.
with regard to the questions you seek clarity on:-
I bring in the old file called joe.txt and save it as joe-1.skcard. It opens fine, but appears to be in a very simple format without all the little headers which are displayed if you use the add card function. The text appears in a line in the top header bar on the right hand panels, and is repeated in the large panel below it with the remaining information such as telephone numbers etc.
Then I would like to edit this card file to perhaps change a name or number. If I change one (any) character displayed in the panel and press enter,nothing much happens, but if I then select any other card in the list, the card which was modified seems to dissapperar from the alphabetical list on the left, and puts it as a blank card (no header information displayed) at the top of the card file list. This dissapearing trick happens as soon as I select any other card. The original header dissapears from the alphabetical list, and as I say seems, to have been moved to a blank headered card at the top.
So , in essence what is the correct proceedure if any to edit a simple text card file, apart from going back to the original, opening it in a text editor such as notepad, and then reimporting it?.
rgds
Alan

 

[james33]

Dear Alan,

Congratulations, your salutations meet and may I say it, probably exceed Tek-Tips demanding standards! ;-)

It would appear that you are importing the file and not opening it from within the File|Open|Files of type dialog in Sidekick and therefore you are importing it as only one field. If you go to the File|Open|Files of type dialog and click on the drop down arrow beside that field (Files of type) you will get the option of .sdb files and if you navigate to the folder containing your files you can open them. If they are Sidekick95 files then they MUST have .sdb extensions

Try opening it in the way I describe above first and if that fails to work then check out the 250Free website for an email address (I won't post it here as that is not Tek-Tips policy to encourage spammers) The address is on the following FAQ page as I think it would make more sense for me to examine the file structure.

faq807-3761

We can post the solution back here.
Do not open it in notepad and edit it without a backup in the meantime.

Regards
Jim

 

[Searena]

Bon Jour Jim
I have yor addressa and will copy you on the files I have none of them have .sdb extensions, only ,adr and .txt. this is probably because the version they run on is older than the 95 version you are thinking I have.
********
Any idea on the other installation probem I mentioned..?

Just to help the guy out in the interim I took his txt file, opened it in notepad, and edited it into a simple flat file, which he can open in notepad as an intermediate solution. he liked it better that way than using sidekick........ Which doesnt say much for sidekick, but then he is a simple guy who just wants a list of phone numbers, no more no less.
rgds
Alan

 

[james33]

Dear Searena,
Last q.
See this FAQ
faq807-2246

1st bit I will have to sort out as I am not the most expert at the .adr files but if it can be edited in txt then I can import that into Sidekick too.

Regards
Jim