Installing old software

[laserblazer]

I've been trying to get French software installed on Windows 7 and it's not going well! I looked on the Boardworks site and saw this.

 

Nothing happens when you try to launch a presentation from the menu when running Windows 7.

 

This is caused by an incompatibility issue with some older versions of Boardworks software when installed on Windows 7. Please contact Boardworks by emailing [email protected] or call us on 0845 0 300 400 to enquire about compatible versions for your product.

 

Is it fairly common for old software to be too much of a pain to try and get running in Windows 7?

[Grey-gear]

Sometimes yes older software can have trouble, have you tried changing the Compatibility mode to and older version?

[FN-GM]

We had one or 2 bits. We wouldn't support it and advised the department to upgrade.

 

The good thing with boardworks you can extract the power point files, but you wont have the fancy menu shortcut.

[witch]

There has been about 6 programs across two schools that won't play with Windows 7. Oddly enough, several were French programs.

Compatibility mode sorted out some of them as did copying the files etc but I advised the departments to upgrade to newer stuff

[laserblazer]

Sometimes yes older software can have trouble, have you tried changing the Compatibility mode to and older version?

 

Sorry, I should have mentioned that. I have tried it. Good idea about the Boardworks PP stuff @FN-GM

[LeMarchand]

It's a PITA to set up (I found some instructions somewhere for how to get it to work for all users) but "XP Mode" (Virtual PC rather than compatibility mode) seems to run most old software. Of course, there may be save location and printing problems to overcome! I've just told people that they need to start looking at replacing/upgrading those titles if they really still need them to have full functionality.

[dhicks]

Is it fairly common for old software to be too much of a pain to try and get running in Windows 7?

 

I've managed to persude most of our software to install on Windows 7 - this is why I still use an install script that runs after sysprep rather than distribute MSI packages, as if all else fails I can automate crusty old install routines with AutoIt.

[FN-GM]

Sorry, I should have mentioned that. I have tried it. Good idea about the Boardworks PP stuff @FN-GM

 

If you find those .cab files open them up in 7-ZIP they will be right in there.

[free780]

I've seen problems with office 2010 and the fine piece of software that is boardworks. Check your colour depth is 32 bit.

[CyberNerd]

Almost all the boardworks software now comes as platform independent. Upload to VLE, extract and then just provide a link to the clients. It's a lot easier than a windows install, runs on OSX, Linux etc and is accessible to staff and students from home.