Windows 8? 4

[jlockley]

I have two desktops, on with 7 and one vista. They both drive me 'round the bend, W7 more bacause we are always playing cat and mouse with the user account controls and because search is a blithering mess. (Note to W's people: You want to be able to toggle between file search and content search, not have it all at once and not have a search for "music" bring up any benighted mp3 file on your drive.) but I blather myself...
Vista is playing havoc with my database, on which my business is built (and the good people who bought the brand are doing nothing to help - have in fact withdrawn a patch with was initially intended to fix the problem and have removed my year old version from their site). It works with 7.
Before I spring a couple of c notes on 7 ultimate (the only one which allows you to change your languages on the fly) I thought I'd ask this smart crowd if anyone has any knowledge of what is going on with 8. I know betas have been released, and Windows says everything that makes seven great is better in 8 (that bodes ill, actually..MS has shown itself more than capable of fixing what ain't broke for the worse.)
So, any insights, and yes, I know..it's dumb to get a new os before the fixes are out, and I should change the database system, but the structure makes it pretty much impossible.
gracias, y'all.

 

[rclarke250]

There is no Beta, just the Developer Preview is out, and it doesn't have everything running, just the core, and desktop, so they can get a headstart on the applications. Personally I will view 8 as Vista and windows 98, both were made better when the "next windows" came out to fix them. It won't be available till late 2012, so If you need it something now, bite the bullet and get windows 7 Ultimate.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/13/welcome-to-windows-8-the-developer-preview.aspx

Try here if you want to try the the preview, or just read up on it.

 

[jlockley]

Thanks. Well, that's that, then. If I want to work on the home computer, I reopen the battle for control of my files with MS. Good advice.

 

[DrB0b]

If it is your home business, and you dont have to worry about other employees or PCs, why not go with a Virtual Machine and a VM of XP? I know I will get the "not supported" jargon from most, but if you are looking for features that was in XP and not Vista or 7, why not go back to it?

Windows 8 seems like a step back in my mind. Windows appears to be going more user friendly and not tech friendly. If you want advanced features, I advise going with and OS that has it already. Also, what about Linux? Will your DB run on a Linux engine? Thats the magic of a VM, you can play with it and be out nothing but time and some frustration.

But long story short, rclarck is right, you will be waiting a while until 8 is out and bug free or cough up the dough and go Ultimate 7...

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[linney]

You might save a few dollars and certainly some installation and setup time via the use of this.

Upgrade to another edition of Windows 7 by using Windows Anytime Upgrade

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/...of-windows-7-by-using-windows-anytime-upgrade

Windows Anytime Upgrade: frequently asked questions

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/windows-anytime-upgrade-frequently-asked-questions

 

[jlockley]

Thanks. Oh dread..Hadn't thought about clean install.

 

[jlockley]

The DB, sorry to say, is in Paradox, which was a bad decision in the beginning and cannot be changed now, due to its document storage idiosyncrasies. P is essentially now dead to the world, but I can't transfer a system managing 15K people without the documents. Believe me, Access won't take them. Although Linux does support a Corel version, it would mean buying or doing without other software we have used to build the business (including card scan, clip mate..) and I don't fancy learning a new system.
I worked with XP at the office machine, where 7 is now installed. The difference is positive from the aspect of fewer headaches with outside invasion (we had issues) and freezes, crashes and the like. I think there is little discussing suggesting that 7 is not more stable than XP. So is Vista.
I have somewhat tamed both systems at this point (except the benighted search machine, and I forget to use the others)and can live with 7. Since I installed Vista on the home computer most of the software has been updated, so I doubt that I would get away without backward compatibility issues, too. (I still use xp on my laptop without problems, though, and don't intend to change that.
I think the bottom line is that there is no perfect world, and you choose the flies in your ointment. It appears to me that the flies in 7 can be lived with. As for 8, I absolutely believe your assessment.
If it weren't for Paradox, I'd stick with Vista. thanks for the input.

 

[walker2]

jlockley the problem with W-search is exactly why, I use
this:

http://www.ghisler.com/

OK, it may have been added in a newer version than mine, but I am not able to do something else in there while a search is going on.
Besides from that ...

It actually takes a lot of good things from the way old Norton Commander and then some. Background zip'ing for instance.

 

[Sympology]

Are these any help to you?

http://jan.kneschke.de/projects/pxtools/

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1616939/reading-paradox-database-files

Robert Wilensky:
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

http://alvechurchlounge.org.uk

 

[linney]

For machine wide searching you might have to look at extending your Indexing Options to cover all the folders otherwise searching may be slow.

You can also look at setting Search Options, Control Panel/ Folder Options/ View/ Search.

This is from Windows 7 Help and Support.

"If you can't find a file, you can expand your search to include different locations. For example, if you're searching for a file in the Documents library, but you're not sure where the file is stored, you can search across all of your libraries or your entire computer. Here's how:

Click the Start button , and then click Documents.

In the search box at the top of the open window, start typing.

Scroll to the bottom of the list of search results. Under Search again in, do one of the following:

Click Libraries to search across every library.

Click Computer to search across your entire computer. (This way you can search for files that aren't indexed, such as system or program files, but remember that the search will be slower.)

Click Custom to search specific locations.

Click Internet to search online using your default web browser and your default search provider."



This might or might be useful.

Tips for finding files

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/73106209-6df0-432a-8cb7-df5d8ce02ec61033.mspx

Windows Search.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/technicalresources/advquery.mspx

In Vista or Windows 7, if you look at the Taskbar and Start Menu properties where you Customize the links on the Start Menu, what have you got in there for Search? There are a couple of available settings in there to play with.

If you look at Organize/ Layout, and tick Search Pane, does that make Advance Search easier to find?

If you highlight a folder and press F3 does that show you an Advanced Search option?

When searching my small Network from Windows 7 I didn't play about with my current settings to make it include the various Network locations (which seemed possible via a Custom search), I just searched my machine and then a Networked machine as two separate searches. For me this was successful.

I am no great lover of Windows Search, and do use other search programs too.

I find this a useful Search alternative.

SearchMyFiles v1.55

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/search_my_files.html

 

[jlockley]

Thanks Linney. As always, you bring great suggestions. I need to get down and dirty with it tomorrow to see what I can figure out. Right now I tweaked search and it brings up everything, so this is welcome.
(The really great annoyance was looking for a folder with the word "music" in the title and being bombarded by thousands of mp3 files.)
Walker: I downloaded it and it looks and feels terrific, but it's in Swiss Franks, which means it no longer costs $38 but about $60, as the SFr supervalued itself with the EU financial crisis. I may get it later. Right now I am throwing a lot of dollars at a laptop upgrade.
Sympology: It looks promising, but I suspect it above my pay grade. I have it downloaded and extracted but can't figure out what next. Reading the files on blob files, however, is enlightening (even though about half of it passed over my head.) I am trying something called PDX converter, which crashed a few times, but that might have been on the Vista system. (Paradox is essentially incompatible with Vista, even though it appears to work...corrupted files, faulty shut down behavior, repeated crash messages, although it does not crash.
At any rate, if I can get something to function, I will migrate the data system out of Paradox, although it's been a pretty good resource for all these years.