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Posted

Got a prog (old Junior Lib) running on an XP virtual machine inside a Win7 host.

 

The prog needs to read from USB stick using drive letters

 

Win7 virtual machine only passes on the real USB drive (G: ) as a mapped network drive thinginmajig that the prog doesn't think is a real drive letter (and lets face it - its not wrong!)

 

Anyone got a really cunning plan to get around this.

 

No Google solutions (or I think this would work) accepted :)

 

You must actually run an XP Virtual Machine on a Win7 host and prove it can be done :)

 

Simon

 

PS Can't wait for the standard irrelavent replies to flood in :)

Posted (edited)
Got a prog (old Junior Lib) running on an XP virtual machine inside a Win7 host.

Can the application be made to run on Windows 7 (on newer)?

 

You might be able to use Microsoft's Application Compatibility Toolkit to fix certain issues.

 

The prog needs to read from USB stick using drive letters

What is the purpose of the USB drive? Is it some kind of license dongle? I have never used Junior Lib.

 

does "assign" or "subst" not work anymore in CMD? so long since I have used them.

It will probably have the same issue as the mapped network drive (not a real drive).

Edited by Arthur
Posted (edited)

We have a very old version of Junior Lib - I've been here 12 years and it was here before me - and we have it running on a Windows 7 machine with no issues. The Librarian does the backup to a USB stick every night.

I'm sorry if you think this is irrelevant but if you can run your program on a Win 7 machine you won't have any more issues.

Edited by witch
Posted

You can use the commands pushd and popd to help with that. You would need a batch script to integrate it though. How it works is "pushd" assigns a random drive letter to a mount point or folder, useful for programs that don't know how to deal with network addresses or if the usage scenario doesn't really need a dedicated drive letter mapping, or in this case when you have no control over the core system. When the program is finished, you can simply use "popd" to disconnect that association and drive letter. You can capture the drive letter using various methods in batch and then pass it on, but if it's automated backup it might not always be the same drive letter.

 

By the sounds of it since it's running on Windows 7, you might be using XP Mode, which is limited. If you have spare licenses you can move to VirtualBox which will allow you to capture a USB drive by means of a filter driver and gives you native access to USB devices. I'm not familiar with the program you are using that needs to do backups but I can send you samples scripts I use in my deployment scenarios where I mount networks paths to a local drive letter for cmd batch use.

  • Thanks 1
Posted
We have a very old version of Junior Lib - I've been here 12 years and it was here before me - and we have it running on a Windows 7 machine with no issues. The Librarian does the backup to a USB stick every night.

I'm sorry if you think this is irrelevant but if you can run your program on a Win 7 machine you won't have any more issues.

 

I'd just like to echo this. The version we have also runs on Windows 8. What version do you have?

 

Would using a W8 host + HyperV improve things if it's so old that it will only run on XP?

Posted

In aswer to all so far

 

haven't got original disk so that's why it was virtualised

 

JL only looks for "real" removable drives - it ignores c:

 

Will try a bit of subst - I'd forgotton that !

 

Its not XP mode - its an XP machine virtualised using Disk2VHD

Never header of pushd - will google and try that

Posted
Got a prog (old Junior Lib) running on an XP virtual machine inside a Win7 host.

 

The prog needs to read from USB stick using drive letters

 

Win7 virtual machine only passes on the real USB drive (G: ) as a mapped network drive thinginmajig that the prog doesn't think is a real drive letter (and lets face it - its not wrong!)

 

Anyone got a really cunning plan to get around this.

 

No Google solutions (or I think this would work) accepted :)

 

You must actually run an XP Virtual Machine on a Win7 host and prove it can be done :)

 

Simon

 

PS Can't wait for the standard irrelavent replies to flood in :)

 

If you're trying to import Students.csv (by the sounds of things), you can change the drive letter by typing over it, even though it's not immediately obvious.

 

If you're backing up, you can backup to a server share or UNC path. Either works fine.

  • Thanks 1
Posted
If you're trying to import Students.csv (by the sounds of things), you can change the drive letter by typing over it, even though it's not immediately obvious.

 

WOWEEE!! i DIDN'T know that :)

 

Simon

PS already doing the backup - this is for student import :)

Posted
WOWEEE!! i DIDN'T know that :)

 

Simon

PS already doing the backup - this is for student import :)

 

Showing my age - amazing the rubbish I seem to remember! :) Happy to help!

Posted
You can download the JuniorLib installation files from their website fairly easily- you only need your school postcode and customer number to access the support area. Then I'd be binning that XP VM pronto!
Posted
You can download the JuniorLib installation files from their website fairly easily- you only need your school postcode and customer number to access the support area. Then I'd be binning that XP VM pronto!

 

This is @SimpleSi he just won't let go of his XP and older fetish but we love him for it ;)

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