This is "off topic" so I request the patience of those who are much more interested in equipment preservation issues.

The preservation and continued usability of older Windows software has become an issue with many organizations and also with the railroads. Many of the software packages issued in support of locomotive microprocessors, event recorders, and cab signal systems are not compatible with Windows 7.

Microsoft has made available "Windows XP Mode" which can be installed on Windows 7 machines running Professional version or above. It is a free download, but if you want to put it on Windows 7 home version, the Microsoft download website will require you to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional. First download Microsoft's analysis software to determine if your system has the necessary features for Windows 7 Professional and to operate Virtual PC before you spend the money on an upgrade, some systems may not support the feature. Then when you do upgrade I would recommend that you seek the "Windows Anytime Upgrade" page on the website, the cost of doing it that way is about $89 and may be cheaper than the packaged upgrades available in stores and online.

It then requires two free downloads, Microsoft first has you download the Windows XP Mode and then Windows Virtual PC. On many computers including very recent ones you will then get an error message with instructions to change your bios settings to enable running in virtual mode. This is not difficult but some manufacturers manage to hide the switch pretty effectively within the list of settings.

Once you get it installed, you have to go through a setup procedure on XP Mode. It will then generally give you an error message telling you that your computer does not have anti-virus protection. Since Virtual PC running XP mode is essentially another operating system, you will need to install your anti-virus program again in the XP Mode, so plan on buying the multi-user version of the program from now on.

I do not advocate going to this much trouble on behalf of any older programs that are capable of being run in Windows 7, it is a lot of effort to go through just to be able to run them on the XP desktop. This is strictly a measure to allow you to keep using older software that may be essential to your operations and does not run properly under Windows 7. It is valuable for use with software from suppliers who have left the business and for situations where newer versions of software are never likely to be issued due to mergers, etc.

I am not an MIS professional, I manage and troubleshoot locomotives, so perhaps some of the more computer literate participants in this forum would be so kind as to fill in the blanks on anything I have missed.

PC

Some of my Fire Apparatus configurator software has yet to be upgraded by the manufacturer to run under Windows 7.

In the meantime I purchase lease return computers from Dell with XP already loaded... may not be the correct way to handle the situation, but I get decent computers at reasonable pricing without the hassle of Windows 7.

Tim W.

I agree with Tim. The easiest solution is to just dedicate an older computer to running that software with whatever operating system works best with it. If it is kept off the Internet there is minimal risk of malware infection and it should run quite happily for many years. The occasional file transfer to the outside world can easily be handled with a flash drive or even a floppy disk.

At WRM our legacy ticketing system (written in compiled QuickBASIC) is running happily on a couple of DOS systems. We should redo the whole bookstore/ticketing system, but until that happens why bother with Windows?

This is how I understand the issue of Microsoft Windows and older software. I have worked with computers since the 1980s, and I program in Visual Basic; just to give you some idea of my background.

Since Microsoft Windows XP came out; there have been two versions of Windows for sale -- the 32-bit version, and the 64-bit version. The vast majority of Windows XP users had the 32-bit version; because few drivers were written for 64-bit Windows, and even some program installers were still written in 16-bit (Windows 3.x) code. Only serious gamers, sciencetists, and engineers ordered the 64-bit version to take full advantage of the hardware.

Windows Vista also shipped with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. But, like Windows 95, Vista was fraught with problems; so just as Microsoft shipped Windows 98 to fix 95's problems, they shipped Windows 7 to fix Vista's problems. (It also has a few new features.) Hence, there are not many copies of 64-bit Vista out there.

Windows 7 has been out for awhile, and now, many computers ship with 64-bit Windows; so the problem of older software has come to the forefront. But, it has been there since Windows XP; Windows NT before that had problems with some Windows 3.x and DOS software as well.

To the best of my knowledge, 32-bit versions of Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 play reasonably nicely with much of the older software. You may have to go into properties in XP, and on the Compatibility tab, change the compatibility mode to an earlier version of Windows; I am not sure if this feature carried forward with Vista and 7.

However, 64-bit versions of all of these operating systems do not run software written for Windows 3.x and/or DOS. All of these were written in 16-bit code; and as I mentioned before, some installer programs still written in 16-bit code will not work either.

So, Microsoft released the XP Compaitibility Mode to address what has become a growing issue with legacy software. (Museums and shortlines are far from the only ones to have older software for which there is not an upgrade path, and having a new solution written is cost prohibitive.) Preston, I was not aware that if you want to put it on Windows 7 home version, the Microsoft download website will require you to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional first. If that is true (I will check with a source), that could be an issue as well.

The solution of running legacy software on an older machine will work for a time; but eventually, it will fail. If it is seeing occasional light duty, and the computer's interior is kept free from dust (all bets are off if you have never opened the case and cleaned the interior and power supply out since 1990), you may get many more years of service of it. And while the prospects of losing two PCs at the same time is rare; what will you do when both fail? I think it is better to upgrade the sytems BEFORE it becomes a crisis issue; or you have to spend thousands on having a data recovery firm salvage the contents of your fried hard drive (like the local theater had to do.)

My dog in this fight was my Surviving World Steam Project. It was originally written in the mid-1990s, using Visual Basic 3.0. One of the reasons I pulled it from the web a couple of years ago was because of the rise in the number of copies of 64-bit Windows; I did not want to sell 15-year-old "new" software to a user who couldn't use it.

I had my source try installing and running one of my programs under XP Compaitibility Mode in 64-bit Windows 7. He said it worked great; and here is a screen shot of it:



You may have to click on the above picture and request the full size picture to see it; but notice he has the Task Manager running in the lower left corner. And notice that the Surviving Steam Rolling Stock (steam_rs) and Windows Help (winhelp) are indented under something named wowexec.exe. That is the "Windows on Windows" (WOW) program that allows 32-bit Windows to run 16-bit programs seemlessly. If you are not sure if a program is 16-bit or 32-bit; this how you can find out; clicking on Ctrl-Alt-Del, and selecting Task Manager will bring up the Task Manager; click on the Processes tab to see this list.

According to Microsoft, they could not "thunk" 16-bit Windows calls to a 64-bit operating system, so they developed XP Compatibility Mode instead. Since it is a virtual operating system running under Windows 7, it is not as seamlessly integrated as WOW was; XP Compatibility Mode itself still uses WOW to run older 16-bit Windows programs, as you can see in the above example.

I was fortunate less than a month ago to obtain a copy of Visual Basic 6. So, I have been working on re-vamping the entire Surviving World Steam Project, while upgrading it to 32-bit code. It should then run on everything from Windows 95 to 64-bit Windows 7; I am lining up testers to confirm this. It should also continue to work in future releases of Windows; though I may have to bundle some additional files for Visual Basic 6 and Windows Help that are still included in the operating system for now. Here is how the new interface looks; I hope to have the new website up in a couple of weeks.

Excellent explanation Jim, thanks for sharing it with us.

I understand several major railroads and commuter agencies are dealing with this problem exactly as described by earlier posts, they are backdating Windows 7 laptop computers to Windows XP or using older XP equipped computers, and putting them in dedicated service doing downloads. Of course the elimination of the RS232 port was also a problem in this area, nowadays you need a USB to RS232 adapter for doing downloads from most locomotive equipment.

However from a business standpoint that seems eventually self defeating, sooner or later there are going to be Windows 7 programs that you want to run.

PC

You're most welcome.

The other problem with running a legacy operating system and hardware is that the OEMs no longer support it. Microsoft recognized the problem with legacy software, and has extended support for XP time and again. But, with XP Compaitibility Mode now available for Windows 7; they will probably let the support expire shortly (unless major corporations still refuse to upgrade to Windows 7 -- that is what is keeping XP alive and fully supported by Microsoft.)

Once support is gone, and your system crashes; you are at the mercy of the local computer repairman and data recovery service. They know they have you between a rock and a hard place, and can charge you accordingly.

XP Compaitibility Mode will be the way to go, rather than running XP as the main operating system. It is more complicated; but will still be supported by Microsoft; otherwise, you are on your own with your in-house support and resources on the web. It would be shame to have your museum or railroad shut down not because of problems with your track or rolling stock; but because your mission critical software (ticketing, reservations, accounting) disappeared in a system crash, and could not be made to work on a replacement PC.

If you don't mind me sharing my recent experiences; it shows the problem of trying to stick with legacy operating systems and software. I have two Compaq desktops at home; one I bought new in 2001; the other was given to us used a couple of years ago.

I lost the hard drives in both machines last year; another reason I let the Project lapse for awhile. The hard drive in the 2001 Compaq suffered a hard disk failure, and would require a data recovery service to recover the data on the drive. The newer machine's drive was brought down by malware.

A computer shop transferred the newer machine's data to a new hard drive, which they installed in the machine. It has worked fine, until I tried to install my old software for burning CDs (Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.0). It turns out that the newer version of IE installed broke Easy CD Creator, and the drive is not recognized. There is patch for IE; but I would have upgrade to Professional version to apply it (sound familiar?), and the old patch for newer drives is no longer on Roxio's website. So, I had to retire it; fortunately, there is an abundance of CD burning software on the web.

I wanted a machine running Windows 95 to test compatibility of my project with Windows 95/98/ME. So, I installed another hard drive in the 2001 Compaq, and installed Windows 95. It crashed right out the box -- Windows 95 could not handle a Pentium 4 microprocessor without a patch. Fortunately, it was still on Microsoft's website, so I got it up and running.

I cannot get the AGP video card I installed for Flight Simulator to work at anything greater than VGA; repeated attempts to get different drivers to work have failed. The sound card does not work out of the box; may be able to get it to work if I can find the right drivers. Although this, the last release of Windows 95 (OSR2) has support for USB ports; I cannot get it to recognize any of my memory sticks or my USB wireless network card. It recognizes the CD-R and DVD drives; but I cannot find CD burning software that works with it. Haven't even tried to get the DVD player to work; the fact of the matter is that finding software that works with this hardware in Windows 95 is all but impossible. I was able to do my testing; but that is it; it is like repowering a Ferrari with a Model T engine. It can still move, but barely, and none of the electrical stuff works because a Model T engine doesn't support them. Most folks would argue it is not a Ferrari at all anymore.

That will be XP in 5 or more years. All of the current micro-processors support 386 Enhanced mode, the mode that Windows 3.x and Windows 95 used to address and page memory above 1,024 kilobytes. But, that capability will disappear at some point in the future.

If you have any software still on floppy disk; transfer to memory sticks or CDs immediately. One good thing about my old system is that I have access to a 3.5" floppy drive once again; so I have one more chance to move some old documents and programs still on floppy disks to the newer computer. And needless to say, I would make sure I have a backup system in place; one that restore not just data, but the entire drive in the event of a hard disk failure.

I would then have my critical legacy software running on at least two systems. At least every two years, I would try to upgrade one of the machines to newer hardware and a newer operating system. I would let it run in an operational setting (most small companies don't have a computer lab) for a year or so to make sure no issues surface, then the do the same for other machine, attempting to upgrade it further. I would keep this up until both systems are at least up-to-date enough that the hardware and other software is still covered by manufacturer. That gives you a lot more options for repairing and replacing should disaster strike.

I remember the 1980s; when several operating systems were competing in the open market. In the computer world that existed at the time; most of us would never expect software written then to still work 20 years later; most software has a half live of about 5 years.

Yet, much of the Windows 3.x stuff written in the mid-1990s still works 15 years later under 32-bit Windows XP, Vista, and 7. While going through my old files; I found some Windows utilities that I think date back to Windows 2.0; the first version of Windows I tried (remember Cardfile?) To my surprise, several of them still work; exactly 23 years after it was first released! That's about 230 computer years; beaten only by some software written for Commodore 64 GEOS that can run on a Commodore 64 emulator on my Windows XP machine.

That is great on many fronts, but it can also make us lazy in looking for replacements for our mission critical software. That is not good business practice for the reasons given above.

OK.

*laughs*

You guys are punking us, right?

Or has the board malfunctioned and I'm seeing postings from 1994?

Or is the subject matter operations at a computer museum?

You are not actually having straight faced conversations about hand-coded, proprietary applications that run on only one computing platform, on local machines you must maintain and back up yourselves. In this day and age.

I mean... you can do it that way... people will sell you stuff to do it... but it's suicide. You can't keep up with the software updates (as you are quite vividly learning James!) You can't keep the security up on the boxes. You can't keep up with the hardware failures and the backups. You literally end up spending half your time maintaining the stuff that makes it possible for the code to run. And then it's not even accessible. Way too much work way too little useful product.

Running a computer museum. That is a GREAT way to describe what some of the railroads are doing in putting old operating systems on their equipment. Of course sometimes they are running a locomotive museum too, they just don't view it as being a museum.

PC

Get out sometime in the real world, Robert; it may make you appreciate your job more.

Near as I can tell, the local theater is still using a DOS based ticketing system. I worked for a successful major corporation with TONS of "hand-coded, proprietary applications that run on only one computing platform, on local machines you must maintain and back up yourselves"; they are just now looking at upgrading from XP to Windows 7.

From 2003; but still true:

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1016_3-5121458.html

2006:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01587.html

And while n-tier web based applications get you out of the operating system nightmare; it is not a fix-all; note the thread on this board about some users have trouble with RYPN and their browser. The local Christian Radio station is running ads explaining to users how to adjust their browser settings so the station's website loads completely.

I have seen some nightmare n-tier implimentations as well; such as a web-based maintenance management product that also does lock-outs/tag-outs being ran on the thunderstorm-prone Gulf Coast, while the corperate ISP is in New Jersey. Plant management was wanting the Access-based interium solution I put in place that never went down for several years the second or third time in as many months the entire system went down due to lighting strikes knocking out their connection to their ISP.

As Paul Harvey used to say, "we are not one world;" and the computer application scene has only become more complicated with software-as-a-service; most companies are like the one I mentioned earlier; and have a nightmare web of everything now.

obselescence....

some companies have old software developed in DOS and they now have up to date computers....running their old software in the DOS box, its cheaper to not re-develop the software.

I have and old Zenith dos computer and found database software to run on it, my purpose, make a database software to make model railroad traffic.

OK I need to explain Something about how you all can deal with these LEGACY issues,

Virtualize them ----- let me explain,

you can aquire FREE OF CHARGE a VM application (I do not recomend Microsoft Virtual PC in this case) that will run the whole OS Virtually,weather it be windows xp, windows98, even linux, since for the most part you are trying to do nothing more than interface with other legacy hardware virtualization should work without any problem all of everyones input i read has it short cummings however with VIRTUALIZATION in this case you will be completely good to go with a USB rs232 adapter just make sure your com-port is properly ID'd in windows 7 first so you know where it is to get a complete break down step by step on how to virtualize windows send me a message, and for the record these so called legasy issues are getting more and more common

the product you should be considering is VIRTUAL BOX by Oracle

your interfaces are probably nothing more than Shells within the OS and really take no part in BINDING ITSELF to the OS your simply interfacing with it, so therefore if you and your staff are more comfortable in windows xp 98 ect ect stay in that os to keep it uniform

I am a Liscenced Microsoft OEM Partner
with a bachelors in COMPUTER HARDWARE ENGINEERING

BTW another thing that can be done for the museums is a request for a dontaion on a USED laptop computer for just this particular interfacing and diagnostics, and if you really want to be able to use the best, then i recomend a jump onto EBAY for a panasonic toughbook with windows xp for its liscencing those laptops are the same that our desert troops are using in IRAQ and Afganistan they are almost industructable and are IDEAL for any type of Shop environment and spare parts of all sorts are still readily available on the internet

Chris could use some spelling help from time to time, but he does really know his computer stuff!!! :-)

And he knows his way around a needle scaler...

Howard P.

pretty much what Direct X is, its a common interface between peripherials the industry uses than the industry trying to figger out all the technical variations.

Windows 7 is one OS, XP another, and the "shell" interprets to fit into the W7 OS.

Regarding older PCs which are used to control proprietary unobtanium hardware. Such as an HVAC management system which ran a whole campus, and relied on an ISA controller card in a PC, a controller that often costs more than the whole PC. I've dealt with these things in my ample real world experience. (it's interesting that anytime someone disagrees with you on the net, they assume you have no experience.) When you install special hardware like that, the box STOPS BEING A PC and becomes an appliance. A single-purpose appliance. If you had a 6 year old copier that you knew ran Windows XP internally on its embedded microcontrollers... would you try to make it a print server too, or play Solitaire on it, or install McAfee, or upgrade to Vista? Of course not. You let it be just an appliance, and when it finally is irreparable, you get another appliance. Luckily some parts are industry standard.

What I'm much more worried about is when those old legacy systems exist entirely in software. And they are running on a software platform that is ... well, not hardly what anyone would use if they're building that thing today. And the impediment to progress is a "who moved my cheese" sort of resistance.

Seriously. If you could go back and talk to the people who originally built what has evolved into that "nightmare web" of ragtag fugitive batch scripts -- those people would be annoyed. They'd say "Hey! What we did was elegant at the time, and certainly better than the Apple II stuff it replaced. But then it got modified and shimmed over the years. We did the best with what was available at the time. If there was stable, affordable LAMP systems and XML and robust OO scripting languages like Perl, we darn well would've used them, because it's far more efficient. But we couldn't. So we did with what we had. Do better. Please."

James, you talk about the difficulties of "n-tier", but the real trouble is proprietary code. n-tier gives you tiers that are simple, modular and interchangeable. Where are the failure points? RyPN could use any flavor of Linux or Apache, one of several DBs, any implementation of PHP, any of several forums, and any browser. In fact, the fix was to swap browsers. Amusingly, the response is "RyPN is broke! N-tier is broke!" Um -- no, that is not the failure point. And the Christian radio station, *chuckle* let me guess which browser. The Lockout-Tagout system should be Web based, but also should have been running on a locally installed box, obviously. In other words, n-tier works great when you do it non-badly.

The trick is to do it non-badly. And for that, I need to address the point that much of this thread is kvetching about the state of computing relative to one particular vendor, spoken as if that described all of computing. That is wrong. Open-source stuff is so powerful, because it has a different model of accountability for software quality. The consumers of the software collectively control its development and directly get bugs fixed on the consumer's schedule. Yahoo forked a version of Apache called YApache because not all the changes they proposed got adopted. Consider the copyright implications of that.

The world is not getting simpler, but the best of breed are being selected out quite effectively, partly because it's so easy to trial software with $0 license fee. Commercial software is not winning.

Yeah, there's a mess of legacy stuff. Most of it needs to be dumped. Some of it needs to be upgraded. And the question needs to be asked - if I was building this brand-new today, what would I build it on? And you need to be able to do that search without bias, because the answer is unlikely to resemble computing history.