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re: Installing 3.5 disk pgm on a new Vista laptop Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 2:31 pm Posted by MartinM (3454 messages posted) Why not get a USB floppy disk drive ? PS are you sure the (old) programs will run on Vista - however the drives are incredibly cheap so I guess you can take that risk :-) [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Installing 3.5 disk pgm on a new Vista laptop Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at 6:21 am Posted by Charlie Hadden (854 messages posted) First I agree totally with Martin about the viability of older programs being used with Vista. You may be able to access some of them in the 'Compatibility Mode', but that has gotten more and more feeble as the years go on. You May have some success finding a 'Virtual Machine' program which is a software version of a computer you run within Windows that will permit you use of older software. That being said, I doubt that MS is stopping you from copying files. It is more likely your method or software used to do the copying. Realize that what you have desvcribed would be some sore of copy protection that would be quite old and probably no longer even evaluated by Windows. Try to find a suitable program like "Nero" (you would have to purchase) or possibly "Disk Copy" which is free at the link I have listed below. This type of software is more suitable for your purpose as it is dedicated to that purpose. http://www.tucows.com/preview/206988 [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Installing 3.5 disk pgm on a new Vista laptop Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 2:31 am Posted by herb (27 messages posted) Thank you for the helpful suggestions. I use Nero for burning, BUT - copying the disks to a CD-ROM is not the problem.....Even if all Disk 1 thru Disk 5 are copied onto a CD, in its functioning, the end of Disk 1 (on the CD) is still looking for "Insert A:/disk2" .... not E:/disk2... (see the difference?)...and the end of Disk 2 is looking for "Insert A:/disk3" ...not E:/disk3... etc. .... Obviously on a new laptop, there is no "A:/". ... so, the installation on the CD stops and does not proceed to Disk 2 which is copied onto the CD. ....I've also tried copying from the CD to a directory on the laptop labeled Disk 1, Disk 2, etc. That doesn't work either. It also doesn't explain why the .DLL files are not copied over to the CD (when they can be copied to another 3.5 using Disk Copy), and when all the rest of the files are copied.... Thanks again. (by the way, the pgms work on XP, so I have to assume the Compatability Mode would suffice to work on Vista, as well....///////////////////// On Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at 6:21 am, Charlie Hadden wrote: >First I agree totally with Martin about the viability of older programs being used >with Vista. You may be able to access some of them in the 'Compatibility Mode', but >that has gotten more and more feeble as the years go on. You May have some success >finding a 'Virtual Machine' program which is a software version of a computer you >run within Windows that will permit you use of older software. > >That being said, I doubt that MS is stopping you from copying files. It is more likely >your method or software used to do the copying. Realize that what you have desvcribed >would be some sore of copy protection that would be quite old and probably no longer >even evaluated by Windows. Try to find a suitable program like "Nero" (you would >have to purchase) or possibly "Disk Copy" which is free at the link I have listed >below. This type of software is more suitable for your purpose as it is dedicated >to that purpose. >http://www.tucows.com/preview/206988 [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Installing 3.5 disk pgm on a new Vista laptop Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 3:46 pm Posted by Charlie Hadden (854 messages posted) OK!!! You are trying to change the preset/designated source dir for a multi disk burn!!! Let me study a bit. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Installing 3.5 disk pgm on a new Vista laptop Friday, June 20, 2008 at 1:57 pm Posted by Stu Mulne (6 messages posted) Herb: The 3.5" USB add-on may still be the simplest choice.... However, if the installation software is smart enough, you can copy each of the original disks onto separate folders on the CD, or onto separate CD's if you have to. Then, as each new "disket" is requested, you MAY have the option to select a new directory, or put in another CD. 'Course, if the installer expects "A:" and you only have "E:", that could be a problem.... One warning - sometimes the installation routines are also looking for a particular volume name, like "Disk 1". Sometimes you can fake this with the folder name, and sometimes it's not going to work. Another thing to think about.... Some of the older software (particularly Win9x) will just COPY - just burn the folder or whatever else you can find - and load that out to the same place(s) on the new box. You'll probably lose any customization you've made, but the worst case is often the program popping up with a "can't find 'sheepdip.dll'" message. Find it on the old machine and put a copy in the Windows\System directory and other likely places. This might take a few tries, but it often works. Late Win9x and XP-oriented software often requires it's installer to make Registry changes and other things that will kill this, but if it's old enough to be on floppies, you probably will get lucky. (If you've got the new and old machines networked, it's even easier to just copy stuff that way.) Regards, Stu. 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