Very strange: program validates differently in 98 and XP

[Guest]

This is a problem (happening to my accountant, to whom I serve as informal
computer advisor) so strange to me that I hardly know how to describe it, as
a long-time programmer I have a lot of trouble understanding how it could
come about, and involving a number of components so I'm not even sure *where*
the problem lies.

Background: my accountant was running Win98, was panicked by the
announcements of no support, so he bought a new Dell a couple of months ago,
with OEM WinXPpro/SP2. Faced with a large number of applications to migrate
(and discarded installation CDs), we used LapLink PCMover, which migrates
applications, registry entries, DLLs, data, and allegedly everything else,
from one Windows machine to another with a later OS. The migration seemed to
go well, and most of the programs work fine.

One program, however (TaxByte, a Canadian tax program, the company long
since absorbed by its competitor), the versions for several years, show a
strange anomaly: there are a number of form fields that have to be filled in
with a Y or an N, but putting Y or N or anything else brings up the error box
with the message "Must be "Y" or "N"". Even for fields that are pre-filled
with a Y, just tabbing through the field (or clicking on the field and then
clicking on another) brings up the error. Similarly, for fields that must be
filled with an X or a blank, either of these brings up an error message "Must
be "X" or blank"--but a null field (that is, entering the field and pressing
Delete) passes the validation edit. Using the Compatibility Wizard and
telling Windows to handle the program as Win98 doesn't help.

I have looked through the registry and .INI files looking for edit field
values and/or error messages, unsuccessfully. The programs continue to work
on the old machine. I find it hard to believe that XP had a way of
interpreting form input that's different from 98. I don't know whether the
problem was with the transfer, or some quirk in the application programming,
or in 98-XP differences.

FWIW: We did find some installation CDs for TaxByte; however, attempting to
re-install the program brings up some sort of progress bar for a brief
moment, then nothing. I'm a little reluctant to attempt to remove and
re-install the program, for fear of messing things up more and irretrieveably.

Any suggestions or insights gratefully accepted. (I will, however, be out
of town until the end of the month, so will be unable to respond before
that.) Many thanks. --Howard Cherniack

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

This is a problem (happening to my accountant, to whom I serve as
informal computer advisor) so strange to me that I hardly know how to
describe it, as a long-time programmer I have a lot of trouble
understanding how it could come about, and involving a number of
components so I'm not even sure *where* the problem lies.

Background: my accountant was running Win98, was panicked by the
announcements of no support, so he bought a new Dell a couple of
months ago, with OEM WinXPpro/SP2. Faced with a large number of
applications to migrate (and discarded installation CDs), we used
LapLink PCMover, which migrates applications, registry entries, DLLs,
data, and allegedly everything else, from one Windows machine to
another with a later OS. The migration seemed to go well, and most
of the programs work fine.

I never trust programs like this. Although sometimes they work, sometimes
they don't. Apparently you've run into one of the "sometimes they don't"
scenarios. I've had similar bad experiences with other similar "mover"
programs in the past

I can't explain exactly what has gone wrong in this case, but if it were me,
I would uninstall the program, then reinstall it from scratch (reinstalling
it from scratch is what I would have done with all the programs in the first
place).