Win32 or Win64

[Jackie]

Just for information: I do not do much word processing, but my wife
does. This is the first PC I have had with Office on it, and I am not
much impressed, neither is Pat, and we would far rather install our old
Lotus Wordpro. Trouble is, it won't work under Windows 7. No doubt the
Microsoft screw everybody else's software it is our Operating System
policy. They have cut some fonts as well, though they don't cost a lot
each.

Have you tried to install and/or run it with Windows Vista or XP
compatibility mode? You can do it like this:
Right-click on it, choose Properties->Compatibility and there you have
the option.

If you have Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate or Enterprise, you can
download and install "Windows XP Mode". This allows you to run older
applications that does not run on Windows 7, via Virtual PC, but right
on your desktop.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/windows-xp-mode

 

[Bill]

So was I. Do you know what this does? pip b:new=ald1,ald2

I had to cheat. I never used CP/M. : )

Bill

 

[Seth]

I had to cheat. I never used CP/M. : )

IIRC, "pip" was essentially the copy command in CP/M. So in following the
above command, it would appear it would concatenate 2 files in a 3rd new
file (new file is both old files combined).

The part I can't remember is the a: and b:. Was that used back then to
identify floppy drives? Or am I mixing up a DOS convention that wasn't the
same?

If I'm right about that part, then amend my understanding of the command
line to this... Combine the 2 files that are on the a: drive to a new file
on the b: drive.

 

[Chris Sidener]

IIRC, "pip" was essentially the copy command in CP/M. So in following the
above command, it would appear it would concatenate 2 files in a 3rd new
file (new file is both old files combined).

The part I can't remember is the a: and b:. Was that used back then to
identify floppy drives? Or am I mixing up a DOS convention that wasn't the
same?

If I'm right about that part, then amend my understanding of the command
line to this... Combine the 2 files that are on the a: drive to a new file
on the b: drive.

Yep. And I was using 8" single sided floppies...

Chris

 

[Bill]

What percentage of Windows users do you suppose have
never run ANY command from the command line?

I admit when Windows first came out, I was a ney-sayer--"surely
it wouldn't support the complex manipulations I needed to perform
fromt the command line"...once in a while, I miss some of my xedit
editing commands, but not too often!

Bill

 

[Dennis Pack]

IIRC, "pip" was essentially the copy command in CP/M. So in following the
above command, it would appear it would concatenate 2 files in a 3rd new
file (new file is both old files combined).

The part I can't remember is the a: and b:. Was that used back then to
identify floppy drives? Or am I mixing up a DOS convention that wasn't the
same?

If I'm right about that part, then amend my understanding of the command
line to this... Combine the 2 files that are on the a: drive to a new file
on the b: drive.

Seth:
If my memory is correct the a drive was for the 3.5" floppy and
the b drive was for the 5.25" floppy. Have a great day.

Dennis.

 

[Joe Morris]

What percentage of Windows users do you suppose have
never run ANY command from the command line?

Perhaps the question could be asking how many users know that you *can* run
nontrivial commands from the command line? Or that there are some things
you can only do from the command line?

I've automated most of the Windows 7 build process at my POE using numerous
command-line scripts, plus a few PowerShell scripts and C# applications
where the CMD shell doesn't offer the needed function. I take some
(good-natured) ribbing for using the old tools, but my response is the same
as it's been for years: it does everything we need it to do.

M$ designed the "Server 2008 Core" configuration to operate exclusively from
the command line: there is no GUI support. One interesting statistic about
this is the number of security bulletins that list Server 2008 as an
affected system...but then note that Server Core is NOT affected.

I admit when Windows first came out, I was a ney-sayer--"surely
it wouldn't support the complex manipulations I needed to perform
fromt the command line"...once in a while, I miss some of my xedit
editing commands, but not too often!

If you miss the power of the XEDIT commands, buy a copy of Kevin Kearney's
KEDIT application that essentially ports the XEDIT interface to the PC
world, using REXX as its macro language. (If you're interested, buy it now.
Kevin has stated that he plans to market it only through the end of this
year, and support it for another year. I suspect that his potential
customer base - i.e., the old VM community - is either already a customer or
never will be.) The current version (1.6) runs on both 32-bit and 64-bit
Windows 7. www.kedit.com

I routinely use the old character-mode KEDIT for DOS program for quick text
edits. Like Quicken for DOS (which I still use to keep track of bank and
credit card accounts) it does what I want with a minimum of fuss.

Joe Morris

 

[Seth]

Seth:
If my memory is correct the a drive was for the 3.5" floppy and
the b drive was for the 5.25" floppy. Have a great day.

CP/M pre-dates the 3.5". Heck, it pre-dates MS-DOS. My first "PC
compatible" machine was the first "PC Clone", the EaglePC and it was so
early the machine came with both MS-DOS and CP/M cause they didn't know
which OS was going to win the home/entry-level market.

When I installed a 3.5" into my Epson Equity I+ a few years later they had
only recently come out and everybody was like "you're wasting your money,
those things will never catch on".

"a" for 5.25 and "b" for 3.5 was only a "convention" that many people used
early on as the 5.25 was the standard storage medium and 3.5 was the new
drive they were migrating to.

 

[Seth]

Yep. And I was using 8" single sided floppies...

Yeah, I ditched 8" when I got rid of my Altos multi-user CPU (Altos
processing box with 2 Hazelton dumb terminals).

 

[Bob I]

Seth:
If my memory is correct the a drive was for the 3.5" floppy and
the b drive was for the 5.25" floppy. Have a great day.

Dennis.

We didn't have 3.5" floppies then and some PC's didn't have Hard drives,
just the 2 5.25"s.

 

[Kerry Brown]

What percentage of Windows users do you suppose have
never run ANY command from the command line?

The command line is making a big come back in Powershell. Probably not for
the casual user but definitely power users will want to be familiar with
Powershell. If you manage MS Server OS's it is now required.

 

[LouB]

The command line is making a big come back in Powershell. Probably not
for the casual user but definitely power users will want to be familiar
with Powershell. If you manage MS Server OS's it is now required.

PowerShell = ??

http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=powershell

 

[Ken Blake]

If my memory is correct the a drive was for the 3.5" floppy and
the b drive was for the 5.25" floppy. Have a great day.

No.

A: and B: have always been for floppies, regardless of size. In their
earliest days, PCs only had 5.25" floppy drives and both A: and B:
were used for them.

After the 3.5" floppy drives became common, you could still have one
floppy drive or two floppy drives. If you had one floppy drive, it
would be A: and could be either 5.25" or 3.5". If you had two floppy
drives, they could both be either 3.5" or 5.25". Or there could be one
of each, with either the 5.25" or 3.5" using A: and the other size
using B:
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003

 

[Seth]

PowerShell = ??

http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=powershell

He's talking about this one...
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/powershell.aspx

 

[Kerry Brown]

PowerShell = ??

All Programs => Accessories => Windows PowerShell

 

[Tim Slattery]

I got 32 bit (Pro version so XP emulation was available as a backup) because
I understood that the 64 bit version will not run 16 bit applications. I do
not know whether that is true,

It's true, but you can run them in a VM or using something like DOSBox
(www.dosbox.com)

 

[Tim Slattery]

CP/M pre-dates the 3.5". Heck, it pre-dates MS-DOS. My first "PC
compatible" machine was the first "PC Clone", the EaglePC and it was so
early the machine came with both MS-DOS and CP/M cause they didn't know
which OS was going to win the home/entry-level market.

CP/M was an 8-bit system that ran on the computers sold in the late
70s. It's hard to remember their names now, many of them used a Zilog
chip, I think there was other hardware too. Cromemco was one Zilog
based machine. (Apples machines were, as always, different from
everybody else and did not run CP/M.) MSDOS was a 16-bit OS, built for
IBM's Intel-based hardware. It was certainly based on or inspired by
CP/M. At the very least its ancestor QDOS was built as a 16-bit CP/M.

When I installed a 3.5" into my Epson Equity I+ a few years later they had
only recently come out and everybody was like "you're wasting your money,
those things will never catch on".

I'm sure of that. The first I heard of them was in the original
Macintosh.

"a" for 5.25 and "b" for 3.5 was only a "convention" that many people used
early on as the 5.25 was the standard storage medium and 3.5 was the new
drive they were migrating to.

The earliest MSDOS/PCDOS PCs reserved A: and B: for floppies and C:
was the hard drive. Remember the very first IBM PCs didn't have a hard
drive at all, just two floppies.

 

[LouB]

He's talking about this one...
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/powershell.aspx

I thought so, but was impressed by all the hits.

 

[johnbee]

What makes you think it's Microsoft's fault that Lotus Wordpro won't run
on Windows 7?

Operating systems ought to be backwards compatible, to a certain extent.

 

[johnbee]

Have you tried to install and/or run it with Windows Vista or XP
compatibility mode? You can do it like this:
Right-click on it, choose Properties->Compatibility and there you have the
option.

If you have Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate or Enterprise, you can
download and install "Windows XP Mode". This allows you to run older
applications that does not run on Windows 7, via Virtual PC, but right on
your desktop.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/windows-xp-mode

Thanks for the suggestions. I have tried all ways I can under Win 7, but
not in XP mode, which presumably would work. If you recall I mentioned that
it is my wife who uses a word processor, and who told me about the missing
fonts, and I will not expect her to run XP mode.