WINDOWS 7 and WINDOWS 10

[CarolA3]

I recently upgraded to Windows 10.  One of my irritants is that parish records on discs from local history societies no longer function as they did.  Some are no longer searchable.  Having checked with the local history society I bought them from they confirm that it’s a compatibility problem with Windows 10.

I had the same problem a while ago and found that Foxit works with W10.

See https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=760214.

Carol

[louisa maud]

Thank you Carol

Will have a look later

Louisa Maud

[Claire64]

I hate change but I have come to like Windows 10.  But what I did was order the most up to date book on Windows 10 from the library - it might even have been called Windows 10 for Dummies! - and worked through that.  Yes it's different but I am used to it now and wouldn't go back.  Like someone said, it's like changing your car, or going to a different supermarket where everything is in the "wrong" place.  I am sure if you get stuck someone on here will help you.

Windows 7 won't stop working but the support will end, and I think this might mean security updates too. 

[greenrig]

Windows 7 support ends on 14th January 2020. After that date it will continue to work, as normal. But you will no longer receive any Windows Updates, including fixes for security problems. There will be a lot of scams, rumours and hoaxes around this time. 

The issue is that many security bugs in Windows 10 are also present in Windows 7.   So as these are uncovered and fixed in Windows 10, they will be documented, but left open and vulnerable in Windows 7 after 14/01/20.   This means that your Windows 7 system will become increasingly exposed to security bugs, exploits and viruses. 

You have to make your own judgement on whether this matters enough for you to upgrade to Windows 10, with the cost and effort required. You may need a new PC to run windows 10, depending on the spec and age of your current machine.

[Redroger]

One possible solution is to instal Legacy as your FH program it is comprehensive and fully compatible with W10. You can transfer your info using GEDCOMs.

By downloading a free virtual machine (VM ware etc) you can then having installed it on your computer, instal the operating system of your choice and access any program compatible for that operating system. Sometimes I think I have the only floppy disk drive on a modern machine, but it is extremely useful for reading floppy disks running in W95 or 98.An SSD drive means the inevitable slowdown of the system is more than compensated for.

[louisa maud]

Huge thank you for all info received, my husband who doesn't know much about genealogy had back last year added  a family tree programme onto his windows 10, so, I am going to work on that and see how it goes, then I suppose we will have to update the main computer to 10 and I can transfer it back by GEDCOM

I might consider one of the programmes suggested eventually

Everyone has been a good help

Louisa Ma

[andrewalston]

There are very few programs which worked on Win7 and won't on Win10. It was back in Vista when they reorganised the directory structure and default file locations. There have been tweaks to the security model since, but they can be worked around.

Old, 16-bit, programs from before Windows XP (released 2001) will not run under any 64-bit Windows (which is the norm these days), but they should run under 32-bit Win10. The Win10 licence allows for either 64-bit or 32-bit version on a PC. The 32-bit version can only access 3GB or 3.5GB of memory, though, depending on the hardware, so it would not be worth spending on more than 4GB of you are only ever going to run 32-bit.

I have a couple of ancient machines which run fine under 32-bit Win10 release 1809 (the latest).

What are you currently using for your FH program?

[louisa maud]

I am using GSP, bought about 1994 ish

LM

[andrewalston]

So Windows 3.1 then. Things have moved on quite a lot in both the computer and genealogy worlds since then.

32-bit Win10 still stands a very good chance, but if you do decide to bite the bullet and change FH programs, your existing one is unlikely to have any features not handled in a standard GEDCOM file.

If you have access to an old PC, you can download the installation media for Win10 (search for "Windows 10 download" and it should be top of the list), run it in trial mode and see if GSP installs OK.