Sidekick 95/98 in Windows XP 1

[gcdev]

I have run a copy of Sidekick for over ten years and have used it as my address book succesfully for all of this time.I have used it for my christmas cards list and to print envelopes.
I have run it on Windows 98 second edition until I updated my computer to XP home. It has run on XP home for over four years but it has recently stopped. If I try to open it freezes and can only be shut down from the task manager. I get a message that the 16 bit something or other has timed out. There have been other queries about this on microsoft forums but with no satisfactory answers. I think that an update from Microsoft has fouled this up. Any answers out there please.

 

[james33]

Dear gcdev,

Check out the following faq:
faq807-5718


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! Good Luck!

 

[nysailor]

Jim,
I downloaded per instructions SK98, but hwen trying to install in Vista Home I am immediately stopped with the error message "Can't Run 16-Bit Windows program" Tried XP compatability to no avail. Ideas?

 

[james33]

Dear nysailor,

Click on the link below as it is the same one as I mention in my first reply to this post; it contains the answer to your question.

faq807-5718



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! Good Luck!

 

[TurboTurtle72521]

I have used SideKick for 21 years now from DOS TSR days and have it installed on a dual boot XP Pro/Windows7RC. The XP is installed on drive0 with Win7 on drive1 I use the user date files on drive0 for the Sidekick in Windows7 as well as for the XP so files are upto date in either operating system. Wish I could say the same for Outlook 2007!

 

[james33]

Dear Turboturtle,

An announcement on the forum from you that Sidekick DOES work on Windows 7 RC would be a welcome boost for all the other Sidekick users panicking about the new operating system from Redmond.

An explanation of how you installed it, would forestall a lot of 'badly executed' installations which create more problems that have to be solved.

If you can spare the time, those two actions would create a milestone in this forum.

Regards
Jim

 

[DougSilver]

To reply to the original poster, I suspect you have maybe recently installed another program that interferes with the loading of the Windows 16-bit subsystem for running "older" programs. In my case, the culprit was Avanquest SystemSuite. If I used Task Manager (or similar process monitoring utilities) to shut down SystemSuite, then SideKick would immediately load up.

So you could try by process of elimination to see which program is not allowing the 16-bit subsystem programs (wowexec.exe and ntvdm.exe) to start up.

By the way, I am successfully running Sidekick 2.0 under WinXP Professional!

Doug

 

[jonwil]

Hi all,
Thought my experiences installing SK95/SK98 to WinXP might help someone.

I ran Sidekick 95 for many years under Windows ME. When I set up a dual boot ME/XP system (using separate HDDs for each) I successfully ran SK95 from a desktop shortcut in XP to the program on the ME drive. When I had no further need of WinME I removed the HDD and tried to install SK95 to WindowsXP but received the message "Unable to create temporary folder to unpack files....". Traced the problem to the SF_INSTA.INI file which sets the default drive to C:.
Due to computer history I now have no C:drive - my boot drive is G:. Edited the SF_INSTA.INI file and then SK95 installation completed OK.

BUT, flushed with success, I decided to take the advice in this forum and upgrade to SK98. No luck! "Can't run 16-bit Windows program" with the additional unhelpful advice "Cannot find (the correct pathname)\setup.exe-or one of its components...." If it can quote the correct pathname why can't it find the file?
I tried all the suggestions in this forum, and more. Even tried Safe Mode. No luck.
I then copied setup.exe to the Desktop and clicked on it. The error message was different - it now read "....Cannot find .....\SETUP.LID....". So I copied all the installation files to the Desktop, clicked on setup.exe and SK98 installed with no further problems.

However, I do have one problem. With both SK95 & SK98 I cannot update a report after editing an entry in the database(cardfile). Nothing happens when I click on "Update Report" Any ideas?

Regards,
John