thermowiz
Chemical
- Sep 6, 2008
- 3
I would like to port my (licensed) Mathcad 8.0 from my old Windows 98 laptop to my current Windows XP SP2 laptop, so I can use it via classroom projector. Mathcad 8 still works on my old laptop, but I cannot easily use it at college. The screen is dead and it has been demoted to desktip duty at home with an extrenal monitor, a not very portable combination. Mathcad still works on the old laptop. Unfortunately, the Mathcad website says that the Mathcad 8/Windows XP combination is not supported and therein lies my problem.
Some explanation is helpful. I am teaching a graduate advanced math for chemical engineers class this semester and would like to use MathCad as a demonstration tool to show students convergence of series solutions to Sturm-Liouville problems, determination of eigenvalues, etc. I taught this class back when version 8 was new and I was teaching as an adjunct while still working full time for a large multinational. I am still teaching as an adjunct, now semiretired (also doing some consulting).
Even though the MathCad/Windows XP (SP2) combination is not supported, I thought it was worth a try. I used the brute force method of copying the entire path from the old machine to a USB drive ad then to the new machine using Ztree (anyone whocould fix this problem is proably aware of Ztree, which is now often used by programmers, but you can check the Ztree website). I figured this wouldn't work, since I did not attempt to figure out the registry stuff.
Surprisingly, it did work, partially. Using RUN Mathcad.exe from the start menu, Mathcad would fire up, but failed, giving an error box message "failed to create empty document" . I tried a Google search on this message, and found that it was apparently often displayed in connection with a common problem with early versions of Mathcad 8.0. Happily, that Google search also introduced me to this forum.
To be more specific about what happened: running mathcad.exe gave the MathCad window and the error message, with no blank starter sheet in the window. However, menus along the top bar of the window are there, even a floating bar from my last Mathcad run on the old machine. The file menu correctly finds all my old MCD files, but when I tried to open several of the hundreds of files in my many data subfolders, I got the same message and no sheet. Curiously, the extensive help and all those useful sample problems were also still accessible, but useless without an open sheet.
Around 1999 (maybe earler) I had downloaded some patches from the Mathcad website that fixed a number of problems in version 8.0. As I recall, those problems were freezes or crashes, but I don't recall anything like this message. I suppose I could still try to reload Mathcad from the original CD, but I have no reason to think that it would work, and I would have the buggy original version. A couple of years ago, a Mathcad salesman (possibly pre-PTC)contacted me to try to sell me a newer version, but he said that there was no "upgrade path" from 8.0 to the newer version (probably 11, 12, or 13), and I couldn't justify the expense.
I think this is probably hopeless. Many programs have died when new Windows versions and/or new architectures are introduced. but maybe someone who knows a lot more about Windows versions, the registry, etc. than I do has a clever workaround. I can't be the first person who has run into this with any number of programs. So, it's worth a try.
I don't think there's any point in supplying a Mathcad MCD file. I'm pretty sure that any MathCad file would fail. My only hope is that someone out there has already confronted this problem,and has figured a workaround.
Oh, in case it is needed, my new (2006) laptop is a Toshiba satellite A104-S4054, 500MB RAM, 1.86 GHz Intel Solo T1350, 80 G hard drive with about 60G free, Windows XP Media edition, DVD/CD read-write The old one is a Dell Inspiron, 328 Mb RAM, 6G hard drive, CD read only...and a floppy drive.
Ralph, "thermowiz", sorry about that handle, ralph and thermoguy were taken, and I couldn[t think of anything else quickly
PS: PTC, I am well aware that the license allows me to use Mathcad on only one computer at a time. I will delete it from the old computer if I can get it to run on the new one. If I can't get it to work, I will delete it from the new machine and the thumb drive and use it on the old machine as long as the old machine lasts. I had already "moved" MathCad from an office machine to the then brand new new laptop when I semiretired in 2000. (The license was in my name, and the company I was working for gave me permission to keep it.) The office machine was trashed in connection with a move to a different location. I reinstalled MathCad to the new machine from the CE and downloaded the patches from the website. As I recall, Mathcad support helped me with that move at the time, and for free.
What's in it for PTC? Maybe I can convince some others in the college that they should reconsider the deemphasis off MathCad, and create new enthusiasts when the students graduate. There is, in fact, nothing quite like it.
Some explanation is helpful. I am teaching a graduate advanced math for chemical engineers class this semester and would like to use MathCad as a demonstration tool to show students convergence of series solutions to Sturm-Liouville problems, determination of eigenvalues, etc. I taught this class back when version 8 was new and I was teaching as an adjunct while still working full time for a large multinational. I am still teaching as an adjunct, now semiretired (also doing some consulting).
Even though the MathCad/Windows XP (SP2) combination is not supported, I thought it was worth a try. I used the brute force method of copying the entire path from the old machine to a USB drive ad then to the new machine using Ztree (anyone whocould fix this problem is proably aware of Ztree, which is now often used by programmers, but you can check the Ztree website). I figured this wouldn't work, since I did not attempt to figure out the registry stuff.
Surprisingly, it did work, partially. Using RUN Mathcad.exe from the start menu, Mathcad would fire up, but failed, giving an error box message "failed to create empty document" . I tried a Google search on this message, and found that it was apparently often displayed in connection with a common problem with early versions of Mathcad 8.0. Happily, that Google search also introduced me to this forum.
To be more specific about what happened: running mathcad.exe gave the MathCad window and the error message, with no blank starter sheet in the window. However, menus along the top bar of the window are there, even a floating bar from my last Mathcad run on the old machine. The file menu correctly finds all my old MCD files, but when I tried to open several of the hundreds of files in my many data subfolders, I got the same message and no sheet. Curiously, the extensive help and all those useful sample problems were also still accessible, but useless without an open sheet.
Around 1999 (maybe earler) I had downloaded some patches from the Mathcad website that fixed a number of problems in version 8.0. As I recall, those problems were freezes or crashes, but I don't recall anything like this message. I suppose I could still try to reload Mathcad from the original CD, but I have no reason to think that it would work, and I would have the buggy original version. A couple of years ago, a Mathcad salesman (possibly pre-PTC)contacted me to try to sell me a newer version, but he said that there was no "upgrade path" from 8.0 to the newer version (probably 11, 12, or 13), and I couldn't justify the expense.
I think this is probably hopeless. Many programs have died when new Windows versions and/or new architectures are introduced. but maybe someone who knows a lot more about Windows versions, the registry, etc. than I do has a clever workaround. I can't be the first person who has run into this with any number of programs. So, it's worth a try.
I don't think there's any point in supplying a Mathcad MCD file. I'm pretty sure that any MathCad file would fail. My only hope is that someone out there has already confronted this problem,and has figured a workaround.
Oh, in case it is needed, my new (2006) laptop is a Toshiba satellite A104-S4054, 500MB RAM, 1.86 GHz Intel Solo T1350, 80 G hard drive with about 60G free, Windows XP Media edition, DVD/CD read-write The old one is a Dell Inspiron, 328 Mb RAM, 6G hard drive, CD read only...and a floppy drive.
Ralph, "thermowiz", sorry about that handle, ralph and thermoguy were taken, and I couldn[t think of anything else quickly
PS: PTC, I am well aware that the license allows me to use Mathcad on only one computer at a time. I will delete it from the old computer if I can get it to run on the new one. If I can't get it to work, I will delete it from the new machine and the thumb drive and use it on the old machine as long as the old machine lasts. I had already "moved" MathCad from an office machine to the then brand new new laptop when I semiretired in 2000. (The license was in my name, and the company I was working for gave me permission to keep it.) The office machine was trashed in connection with a move to a different location. I reinstalled MathCad to the new machine from the CE and downloaded the patches from the website. As I recall, Mathcad support helped me with that move at the time, and for free.
What's in it for PTC? Maybe I can convince some others in the college that they should reconsider the deemphasis off MathCad, and create new enthusiasts when the students graduate. There is, in fact, nothing quite like it.
lease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.