On 10 Mar 2005 at 17:08, Robert Patterson wrote: []
> The problem is that as computers change, your non-authenticated > version of Finale eventually will no longer work. For Mac users this > is effectively already the case. For Windows users the day is coming. > If it isn't 64-bit Windows, it will be Longhorn. If it isn't Longhorn, > it will be some future post-Longhorn version. . . . Well, if history is any guide, THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN. > . . . If it isn't those, it > will be some driver change, or some midi or audio interface change. Those may reduce the functionality of Finale as a sequencer but they would not prevent using Finale to edit files. > Does the 16-bit WinFin 2.x version still run on Windows XP? Can you > even install it on your current c omputer? (It was distributed on > diskettes that must have been sitting on a shelf for at least a > decade. Do they still work, even if you have a drive that will read > them?) Your comments here just motivated me to try, but I just realized that before I moved in 2000, I trashed the old Finale 2.01 disks/manuals. My bet is that it would work. It would have problems, yes, just as it had with Windows 3.1 (it was designed for Win3.0, before the incorporation of TrueType fonts into Windows), but my bet is that it would work just fine insofar as allowing you to open, edit and print files. > The fact is, the originally planned changes for Longhorn could > possibly have caused a substantial percentage of software obsolescence > as compared with that MacOS X caused for MacOS Classic users. I strongly doubt this. Microsoft has *never* introduced a version of Windows that causes large numbers of software applications to fail to work. Yes, it sometimes breaks individual features, but most often those happen because the applications have been improperly programmed, rather than using the documented APIs. WordPerfect 6.0's problems on Win95 were all due to WP's non-standard programming practices. Had they followed best practices, their software would have run without problems (of course, it did run, and in a perfectly usable state -- it just had a number of small inconsistencies, like the weird minimize/maximize button problem). You might be tempted to point to WinXP SP2 as having broken applications, but it only "broke" them in the sense that the default installation (with no tweaking of the new firewall's default settings) would break the app. I know of no software that could not be made to run under WinXP SP2 by altering the default configuration. This is typical of Microsoft. They really do care about backward compatibility, and engineer it into all of their products. As I said yesterday, I have a client running an dBase II app compiled in 1983 under WinXP. > So which happens first? Does MM vanish or does your next computer no > longer run your old version? One or the other (or both) is going to > happen. There is no escape, and authentication is merely one > additional risk factor. A migration path is essential. And expect not > to be able to edit your files after 10-15 years in any case, at least > not without signficant rework. If history is any guide, Microsoft's OS's will support your app for 15-20 years (maybe longer -- we can't say because we haven't gotten there yet!). And, of course, if a new version of Windows breaks your old software, then you simply maintain a computer with an older version of Windows just for using that old software. The key escrow idea makes that possible in the event of MM's demise. The lack of it means your data files are lost, completely inaccessible to you. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
