Tech: Win 7 / works 4.5 ???

Subject: Tech: Win 7 / works 4.5 ???
From: Gurney
Date: 13 Aug 17 - 10:33 PM

I have Windows 7 Pro, Windows 10, and Works 4.5, all legal, but do they work together! I need a works-type program for my new-ish desktop.
Has anyone made a mix of these? Please.

I hate it when they abandon perfectly good programs just to sell me another. XP was great, and I knew how to work it, and so was 4.5, and here I am fumbling my way through W7, W10, and Microsoft's free software that replaced my old XP.


I never found anything wrong with W98SE, either, and at least software was compatible to XP, mostly.

Subject: RE: Tech: Win 7 / works 4.5 ???
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 14 Aug 17 - 01:21 AM

I may be missing your point, but have you tried LibreOffice?

Subject: RE: Tech: Win 7 / works 4.5 ???
From: Gurney
Date: 14 Aug 17 - 06:36 AM

Ed, on the laptop I have Apache's freeware offering, which seems to work OK, but I have this Office DVD that dearly cost my purse, as we traddies say, and I'm used to it, having used it when I was in business.

I really need to clean house though. I have op-systems going back to W98 Home. And quite a lot of instrument tuning aps. And pieces of computers that are too old to use, like power-units that are not powerful enough, and cards for outdated externals....

Subject: RE: Tech: Win 7 / works 4.5 ???
From: DaveRo
Date: 14 Aug 17 - 07:15 AM

LibreOffice was derived from OpenOffice which became Apache OpenOffice. They're very similar, and can share files, but OpenOffice is less well supported and it looked like it might die or, preferably, merge with LibreOffice. Either will do.

By 'Office DVD' do you mean the Microsoft Works suite you referred to earlier, or Microsoft Office?

Subject: RE: Tech: Win 7 / works 4.5 ???
From: Gurney
Date: 14 Aug 17 - 07:53 PM

I have the Works suite, but only use Word since I retired. I also have Office XP.

I could install and try them, of course, but I've had trouble winkling stuff out of Windows before. I don't keep ''up-to-date,' you see.

Subject: RE: Tech: Win 7 / works 4.5 ???
From: EBarnacle
Date: 14 Aug 17 - 11:58 PM

They should work with windows 7 but are likely to have problems in Win 10,as the underlying program has been changed. On the other hand, our later versions of office [through Office 2010] do seem to work with Windows 10. Go figure.

Subject: RE: Tech: Win 7 / works 4.5 ???
From: DaveRo
Date: 15 Aug 17 - 02:05 AM

A look at running older versions of Microsoft Office on Windows 10

Forget Microsoft Works.

Subject: RE: Tech: Win 7 / works 4.5 ???
From: Gurney
Date: 16 Aug 17 - 11:47 PM

Thanks, guys. As you say, Office XP works well on Win7, or the contained Word does anyway, which is all that I wanted, and Apache's thing is working on Win10, so I am squared away for wordprocessing.


HOWEVER,I have just connected the laptop(W10) to the television set because I have inherited a lot of out-of-region DVDs, and what do you know? There doesn't seem to be a DVD player program on Win10!

I should explain that I live in NZ(region 4) and my set-top box plays region 2 and region 4, but some of the DVDs are region 2.6, wherever that is. In these days of throw-it-away, I don't know anyone around here who can regionally unlock the spare DVD player, either.

I get very irritated when changing op systems. Amiga, Win 98, 98SE, Win2000, back to 98SE, XP, and now this lot. Oh hum.

Subject: RE: Tech: Win 7 / works 4.5 ???
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Aug 17 - 11:56 PM

I was really disappointed when Microsoft Works no longer worked in Windows. I kept a number of Microsoft Works databases for years. I was able to convert them to Excel, but I lost a bit of data in the process and my Excel spreadsheets just don't work as well as they did in Works.
I had no problem converting my spreadsheets and word processing documents to Excel and Word; but now that I no longer have a working copy of Works, I cannot convert any Works files that I neglected to convert when I made the switch. Those Works files are more-or-less worthless now, as far as I can tell.
So, I miss Microsoft Works. It did everything I needed it to do.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tech: Win 7 / works 4.5 ???
From: DaveRo
Date: 17 Aug 17 - 04:02 PM

Gurney wrote: region 2.6

That'll probably be region 2 or 6 - i.e. you need a player for either.

I haven't used a Windows computer to play DVDs for years but ISTR that the OS fixes the region of the DVD drive the first time you use it. So download VLC player and try playing a region 2 DVD.

Subject: RE: Tech: Win 7 / works 4.5 ???
From: EBarnacle
Date: 17 Aug 17 - 04:06 PM

If you can create a partition on your hard drive you might install an older version of Windows for the purpose of running "obsolete" programs and DVD's.

Subject: RE: Tech: Win 7 / works 4.5 ???
From: Gurney
Date: 18 Aug 17 - 12:10 AM

DaveRo, my set-top box plays 2 (England) and 4 (NZ), the most common here, but it can't play a box set of 'Last of the Summer Wine' and says that it can't play these, marked Region 2, and 'that it may be because they are region 2.6.'   
No idea myself, but the DVDs do play on this desktop, but because there is no DVD player on the laptop, which is the one that is connected to the TV, I was looking for a player in freeware. Unfortunately, most of the stand-alone players are recommended only up to WXP, with just a couple up to W7, and the laptop is on W10.....
It is interesting to see YouTube on the big screen, though.

EBarnacle, that is an Idea! I could do XP and Nero. Hmmm.


Somewhere I have a ON-ON switch from when I was going to fit two HDs into my old computer, one on Win and one on another OpSys, but never got around to it. Ah, the bold days of youth.

Subject: RE: Tech: Win 7 / works 4.5 ???
From: DaveRo
Date: 18 Aug 17 - 02:21 AM

If you google for DVD "region 2.6" you get no hits. It doesn't exist.

VLC is free works on Windows 10
https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.en-GB.html

Subject: RE: Tech: Win 7 / works 4.5 ???
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 18 Aug 17 - 09:51 PM

I have been archiving for over twenty years.

Nothing endures, in the digital world, not even, TXT.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Hard copy printed and bound text is, perhaps, the only records that may make it into century MMCC.

Subject: RE: Tech: Win 7 / works 4.5 ???
From: Gurney
Date: 19 Aug 17 - 12:16 AM

Gargoyle, I was grinding up some ink so that I could put quill to papyrus, and I thought..... This'll never last!

DaveRo, The set-top is a Panasonic, no cheapie, but that is what it said.
HOWEVER, I downloaded and installed VLC to the lap-top, and it works perfectly. Thank you. Thank you. And again thank you. And it is a full media player too.

I can now OD on old TV programmes! That'll please Her Indoors.

If I could only find some Amos and Andy shows. Perhaps not PC enough for nowadays? I remember them from the 60s, on an enormous 9" screen.

Subject: RE: Tech: Win 7 / works 4.5 ???
From: DaveRo
Date: 19 Aug 17 - 02:41 AM

There is a 2.6GB capacity of DVD-RAM. Uncommon, I think - like the 8cm CD.