Tubecad won't run on Win7

[JWK]

I've still got an old XP laptop that I use tubecad on, but the day will come (soon) when it will go. I'm thinking of building a new computer and use XP for a little while longer, but it's just putting off the inevitable.

Does anyone know why TubeCad won't run on Win7 (bear in mind that I'm not computer savvy at all) and if there's anything one can do about it?

I'm thinking back and realize I've had TubeCad since my Win 95 machine. Yikes! Is there anything out there that ya'll are using?

Thanks for any help.

[Zipslack]

XP mode for Windows 7 - free from Microsoft. Basically, a version of XP in a virtual machine.

Download here Download Windows XP Mode

[J M Fahey]

Thanks for the useful link, but let me warn you about what I just found:the desktop machine I'm writing from, still uses XP ; but I tried to download XP mode for my Windows 7 Toshiba Notebook.
No dice.
It comes OEM with Winsdows 7 "starter 32 bit"; my son's Acer also has the same, so I guess it's a standard in prepackaged W7.
BUT "XP mode" requires W7 Pro, Enhanced or some other (expensive) version I don'tremember now.
F*ck Microsh*t !!
Don't worry, I'm sure somebody will write a similar , free or open source program.
I use, for my ooooolllld Tango and Autotrax PCB the "DOS Box" program which does just that: emulates a 386 based DOS machine, with *everything* working , such as Soundblaster support, old printers, old monitors and cards emulation, the works.
So soon somebody will come out with something similar for XP.
Meanwhile, buy an older machine for peanuts and keep it wrapped in tarpaulins in your garage or basement, as a backup.

[Steve A.]

Thanks for the useful link, but let me warn you about what I just found:the desktop machine I'm writing from, still uses XP ; but I tried to download XP mode for my Windows 7 Toshiba Notebook.
No dice.
It comes OEM with Winsdows 7 "starter 32 bit"; my son's Acer also has the same, so I guess it's a standard in prepackaged W7.
BUT "XP mode" requires W7 Pro, Enhanced or some other (expensive) version I don'tremember now.
F*ck Microsh*t !!

Microsoft has set a very troubling precedent in the past few incarnations of Windows. In the past the basic version had what you needed and the more expensive versions had added features. With Win 7 (and probably Win Vista) the basic versions have necessary features stripped out. While it might seem like 6 of one and a half dozen of the other but I see a big difference: rather than adding feature for more money they are subtracting features for less money.
I have Windows 7 Home Premium which sounds much better than it is. I have run into many cases where I- the computer owner!- am not authorized to change something that I was able to with WinXP and Win2K. One time it refused to allow me to change the name of a folder that I had just created (its not like I was trying to access the system files and folders.)
Yes I need to quit bitching and switch back to XP but inertia is restraining me- it's already been 8 months and the idea of reinstalling everything is unsettling.

Steve Ahola

[Steve Conner]

I use Oracle Virtualbox for things like this. It's free and available for Windows, Linux and Mac. It emulates a virtual machine on which you can then install the OS of your choice. Modern processors like the Intel Core series support virtualisation in hardware, so there's hardly any speed penalty. There is however a memory penalty because you're running two OSs at once. Memory is cheap, but the starter versions of Windows will only recognise 4GB, another "feature" for Steve A. to get worked up about.

I have a Virtualbox appliance with XP SP3 and all of my development tools installed, and I currently run it on Mac OS. If my machine dies, or the image gets corrupted by some Microsoft lameness, or I wanted to move to Linux tomorrow, I can install a fresh copy in a few hours. (It normally takes about 2 days to install XP and all of my tools on a blank hard disk.)

Win7's XP mode works exactly the same as this, except the emulator is Microsoft's Virtual PC product, not Virtualbox. And presumably a copy of XP is preinstalled. With Virtualbox you also need an XP install CD and a valid product key.

[JoeM]

Microsoft has set a very troubling precedent in the past few incarnations of Windows. In the past the basic version had what you needed and the more expensive versions had added features. With Win 7 (and probably Win Vista) the basic versions have necessary features stripped out. While it might seem like 6 of one and a half dozen of the other but I see a big difference: rather than adding feature for more money they are subtracting features for less money.
I have Windows 7 Home Premium which sounds much better than it is. I have run into many cases where I- the computer owner!- am not authorized to change something that I was able to with WinXP and Win2K. One time it refused to allow me to change the name of a folder that I had just created (its not like I was trying to access the system files and folders.)
Yes I need to quit bitching and switch back to XP but inertia is restraining me- it's already been 8 months and the idea of reinstalling everything is unsettling.

Steve Ahola

I've run into the problem of Win 7 not allowing me to change a file, but some programs need to be opened in Administration mode and then it works fine. Overall. the more I use Win 7 the more I like it, but it does take some time to learn how some of the new features work.

[Steve A.]

I've run into the problem of Win 7 not allowing me to change a file, but some programs need to be opened in Administration mode and then it works fine. Overall. the more I use Win 7 the more I like it, but it does take some time to learn how some of the new features work.

Are you using Win 7 Home Premium? After trying to get "under the hood" to configure things as I like them I learned that Home Premium does not allow user to make many of those changes. There are a lot of things that bug the hell out of me with Win 7 and I really don't want to invest the time to figure out how to change them:
When I change a filename in Windows Explorer Win will instantly refile it alphabetically. Yet I can create files in a folder or move them there and they are not displayed unless I refresh the screen which is easier said than done- you need to move your mouse far enough to the right to be able to access that mouse menu. Depending on the width of the columns you may need to use the horizontal scroll bar to reach that area.
Dropping and dragging files from one Windows Explorer to another can be very tricky. Unless you hit that area on the right the files are dropped into the nearest subfolder rather than the root of the subfolder. So the moved folders may end up nested in another folder.
The search functions are ridiculous; in the beta version there was the option to allow you to search only the filenames and not the contents as well (which can turn a two second search into a two minute search.) So why did they remove that option?

It seems to me that Microsoft keeps dumbing down their operating system since Win2K. WinXP was a dumbed down version of Win2K but with its much improved support of peripherals I did upgrade to it, although I spent about a week getting the interface to be as much like Win2K as possible. What the hell was the reason behind the animated search assistant??? I switched it back to the Win2K search box where you can search by filename, date, and size along with a few other parameters. I've been using computers for over 25 years and I choose names for files and folders so that I can find them very quickly with a filename search. I have NEVER asked my operating system to search contents of files; I think that MS was trying to make their search function more like Google which does search the contents of files. (I always wanted a version of Google that would allow me to search all of my hard drives- did they ever offer that?)

I had thought that Windows 7 was supposed to be a big improvement over Vista only to learn that Windows 7 is an upDATE of Vista, not an upGRADE.

Steve Ahola

[Steve A.]

I've run into the problem of Win 7 not allowing me to change a file, but some programs need to be opened in Administration mode and then it works fine. Overall. the more I use Win 7 the more I like it, but it does take some time to learn how some of the new features work.

Are you using Win 7 Home Premium? After trying to get "under the hood" to configure things as I like them I learned that Home Premium does not allow user to make many of those changes. There are a lot of things that bug the hell out of me with Win 7 and I really don't want to invest the time to figure out how to change them:
When I change a filename in Windows Explorer it will instantly refile it alphabetically. Yet I can create files in a folder or move them there and they are not displayed unless I refresh the screen which is easier said than done- you need to move your mouse far enough to the right to be able to access that mouse menu. Depending on the width of the columns you may need to use the horizontal scroll bar to reach that area.
Dropping and dragging files from one Windows Explorer to another can be very tricky. Unless you hit that area on the right the files are dropped into the nearest subfolder rather than the root of the subfolder. So the moved folders may end up nested in another folder.
The search functions are ridiculous; in the beta version there was the option to allow you to search only the filenames and not the contents as well (which can turn a two second search into a two minute search.) So why did they remove that option?

It seems to me that Microsoft keeps dumbing down their operating system since Win2K. WinXP was a dumbed down version of Win2K but with its much improved support of peripherals I did upgrade to it, although I spent about a week getting the interface to be as much like Win2K as possible. What the hell was the reason behind the animated search assistant??? I switched it back to the Win2K search box where you can search by filename, date, and size along with a few other parameters. I've been using computers for over 25 years and I choose names for files and folders so that I can find them very quickly with a filename search. I have NEVER asked my operating system to search contents of files; I think that MS was trying to make their search function more like Google which does search the contents of files. (I always wanted a version of Google that would allow me to search all of my hard drives- did they ever offer that?)

I had thought that Windows 7 was supposed to be a big improvement over Vista only to learn that Windows 7 is an upDATE of Vista, not an upGRADE.

Steve Ahola