Here’s an unexpected surprise for small law offices running Timeslips.
Sage Software has learned the revenue-generating lesson taught by Intuit (Quickbooks), Lexis/Nexis (Time Matters), and many others: there’s money to be made in forcing people to buy upgrades, whether they need them or not. One way to do that is to abandon products after two years. Customers will feel pressured if they know that a vendor will refuse to provide support for a business-critical program because they are using a version that is too old to deserve respect.
Offices using Timeslips 2008 have probably been getting an onslaught of email messages warning them that support for Timeslips 2008 ends this month. If your database is corrupted in November, don’t go turning to Sage for support! Not their problem. Should have upgraded. I picture them sniffing down their nose in distaste that you would bring them a problem with a version of their product that’s two years old. Sniff!
That’s not the surprise.
The surprise is in the system requirements for Timeslips 2011, the new version that you’re compelled to buy.
If you have a Windows 7 computer, Timeslips 2011 is only supported on Windows 7 Professional, not Windows 7 Home Premium.
Let’s do a quick review. With Windows 7, Microsoft finally straightened out its lineup of Windows products and made the versions coherent and consistent. Each version of Windows 7 rests on a core that is absolutely identical in all versions. Each higher version adds specific features while dropping nothing. Vista had features in Home that were not in Business and vice versa, but Windows 7 is completely linear.
- Windows 7 Home Premium has precisely the right features for a small office with a few workstations.
- Windows 7 Professional has the same features. There are no differences in networking, no differences in file sharing or security.
The important thing added to Windows 7 Professional is the ability to join a domain in a company with a network server. Offices with Small Business Server have to run Windows 7 Professional. (That’s why big companies always buy Windows 7 Professional.)
There are a few other things in Windows 7 Professional – (Windows XP mode for legacy business-critical applications, backups across a network) – but nothing that changes the architecture of the system and nothing that affects how programs run.
Very small businesses without a server buy computers with Windows 7 Home Premium. There has been no reason to spend the extra money for the higher version and Home Premium is the version on all the computers in the stores.
I can’t find any explanation of why Sage requires Windows 7 Professional. Perhaps there’s something I’m missing, because from here it looks like a requirement manufactured out of thin air that can be used as an excuse not to provide support. These vendors don’t like to provide support, you know. They’ll sell the support contracts readily but it annoys them no end if you use them – providing support is expensive.
There is good news. It’s easy to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional. If you’re caught in this trap, click on the Start button, type in “Upgrade,” and click on Windows Anytime Upgrade. You’ll be led through a short, smooth process and for $89.95, you’ll have the upgraded version of Windows 7 with very little delay. All the code is already on your hard drive and nothing important is changed – all that happens is that a few extra features are turned on and a handful of new menus appear if you poke around.
So that’s the surprise. Upgrading to Timeslips 2011 might cost an extra $89 and some fuss, in addition to the cost of the unnecessary Timeslips licenses to a new version that you’re not sure you want, and the annoying support contract, and the risk that the upgrade will wreak havoc with your data or cause your workstations to stop working. Which comes to mind because the first client to run into this had to deal with program crashes when the Borland Database Engine started throwing up error messages on two workstations after the upgrade.
Isn’t the technology world swell?
We are using Timeslips 2011 in a network with 8 users all using XP. Our Server is XP. When adding a new computer to the Network, Windows 7, the entire system shuts down. We asked our IT guy to downgrade the 7 to XP & still have the same problem. With the new pc shut down we all work fine. Turn it on and the entire system goes down. Any ideas fr a fix?
I’ve spent hours in situations that were something like that, trying to find the delicate configuration that will keep everything running. You’ll need tech support from the company, or somebody with a lot of Timeslips knowledge, to sort it out. You’ll likely also need patience and some luck. I would volunteer but I’ve hated my experiences so much, and been so frustrated by them, that I don’t feel at all like I know how to solve TS problems. Good luck!
I too have gone the BDE route and have been on the line with tech support for Timeslips 2011 several times in the past 2 weeks. It appears, however, that Timeslips 2011 runs find under Windows 7 Pro. That is, however, until you run anything using the Virtual Windows XP. Shortly after doing so, you get the unknown error message and Timeslips locks up or Timeslips locks up with no error message at all.
I spoke with Timeslips support today and they claimed to know nothing of the problem and didn’t seem very interested in checking it out.
That’s interesting! I don’t work with any offices where I’ll run into that problem – but what an odd thing! I can’t imagine why running Virtual XP would disturb an unrelated program. Good luck!
Hi Bruce,
Thanks for writing about Timeslips. Though it’s working on my computer, Craig and Nancy still have problems. I’ve gone through the Borland Database Engine routine on Nancy’s computer and need to do it on Craig’s.
FYI, I performed the necessary steps on Nancy’s computer, but then she received the same error message the next business day. Don’t know what’s up. I’ll try the same procedure and see what happens. . .