Paradox 10 on XP presentation issue

[Ferris13]

We are running Pdox 10 from a novell server on Windows XP (Call \\server\vol\pdxwin32.exe). We get a presentation issue. The screen appears, but all menus, forms, etc appear "behind" the actuall paradox window. Several buttons will be missing from the menu bar. When you drag your mouse over the buttons, the reappear. The application is functional (if you can find the buttons), but the presentation is bad. After closing, opening a different pdox screen, same problem. After going back and forth a bit, it finally opens correctly. NO paradox is installed to the XP machine.

If you INSTALL paradox 10 to the local machine, then run the applications from the server, the presentation is correct. Corel's official comment "Corel 10 does not function on XP".
suggestions?

 

[Miros]

I see this as a network problem, not an XP problem, especially since you said installing it on the workstation fixes the problem. It really sounds like Paradox just doesn't want to run over a network. The earlier versions actually specifically said it wouldn't run over a network; you had to install the software on each workstation and only share your data over the network.

In my experience, programs written for earlier versions of Windows (as long as they don't assume they're software gods and maul your registry or system files during the installation) will run fine on XP. I've definitely never heard of menus behind the window and buttons disappearing til you hover over them.

How many users do you have? If it's just a few, buy cheap copies off eBay. If it's many, price a site license from Corel.

 

[Ferris13]

Miros

First, this version of Corel does specifically run from the network. It was installed to the network per the documentation from Corel.

Corel states it will NOT run on XP, and yes, if we install it to the machine, we find it runs just like we want...guess Corel just wants you to upgrade.

as for users, only a few...3400 of them. We already own licenses for this product for every user. However, because they explicitly state they DON"T support it on XP, and because we have the Corel 12 upgrade that we do install local to XP, we don't have the option of going around and installing it to every machine.

The entire issue revolves around delivered forms. We have over 100 existing instances of paradox 10 that use delivered forms. They will not run under Paradox 12 (which is really 11). That's documented by Corel. We're trying to place a single copy of 10 on the server, and point all the users to run their unmigrated instances from there, so we can manage the process of migrating 10 to 12. This was the cost/time benefit thing. If we wait on the 100 different program areas to migrate approximately 100 delivered forms per application, we'll be on Windows 2000/Corel 10 for the next 20 years.

I think the issue is registration of a .dll/ocx. When I used Wise to take a snapshot of the install, it showed 2640 different registry entrys. Not looking forward to sorting through them to find the problem.
Thanks

 

[Miros]

Ah, so it will run with Win2000 on the client machine, but not with XP. I thought XP was supposed to fix DLL-Hell, not make it worse!

Let me think about this... Something's bouncing around in the back of my head, but I can't give it a name right now. I'll get back to you when it decides to pop to the foreground (probably 4am on the way back from the bathroom).

 

[Ferris13]

Miros et al
Ok, still testing this to verify, but here's what I found. On XP, running from the server, the following registry key does NOT exist:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Corel\Paradox\10.0\Pdoxwin\Properties
The following string BlankIsZero, value TRUE is not present. Once I add this value, then run the application from the server, the presentation is correct.
Checking a local install of Paradox10 on a Windows 2000 machine, the key is present with the same label/value.
Installing Paradox 10 locally to an XP machine creates the same key (along with numerous others).
So, if someone has the same issue, might want to check this. I am re-imaging a workstation to our XP standard, and I have modified the run settings of the application to install this key if it does not exist. I'll verify it fixes the issue or not.
thanks

 

[Miros]

Glad you found it! Things are still wandering around in my head, but nothing has "gelled" yet.