Terry Reigel

Rae Jean, I failed to note that you said SP1 - my XP installation is also SP3.

I have TMG 9.0 installed on an XP machine with no issues. I never tried to update it to a later version, but have no reason to think it wouldn't.

That would be because Wholly Genes, unlike many other vendors, did not regard the possession of your email address as a license to SPAM you with sales messages. They made it very clear that if you wanted to hear from them you should subscribe to their newsletter, which has existed for years. They did announce each upgrade, both free and paid, in the newsletter sent to all subscribers, as well as on this forum and the TMG list on RootsWeb, among other channels. The announcement of the discontinuance of TMG was made in all these channels, and many bloggers and others in the genealogy space repeated it. I'm hard pressed to understand how they "prevented" you from upgrading. The "smart" business thing to do when it becomes clear that a business venture is not being financially successful it to turn off the lights, close the website, dismiss the employees, and leave customers to read the trade press to figure out what happened. Instead WG spent cash money to send a newsletter to all subscribers notifying them of the pending shut-down. They kept the store open for two more months so customers who wanted to could buy upgrades. They paid cash money, with no offsetting revenue, to development staff to issue two bug-fix releases. They are still paying, through the end of this month, cash money with no offsetting revenue to support staff to respond to user issue. They have paid cash money, with no offsetting revenue, to support the website that provides this forum and makes available downloads of the installers and other files for customers who need them. They have indicated that the forum will continue to be available for some time into the future, at their expense. Just where is the disgrace?

John, First your question about a backup copy of the installer. The best, and so far as I know only, way is to make one yourself. Directions are in my article on the Future of TMG. I too intend to use TMG for as long as possible since I don't currently see any suitable replacement. We know TMG 9 works on Windows 7 and 8, which should provide capability for quite a few years. A couple of users have said they have tested is successfully on beta copies of Windows 10, so that might extend the life of TMG 9. There is a list on RootsWeb called TMGRefugees which is exploring the issues associated with moving to another program. There is a link to the sign-up page at the bottom of my article linked above.

Bette, First, it is very important if you intend to continue using TMG that you have your own copy of the installer, kept in a safe place. That means someplace other than on your computer. I no longer find it on the WG website, but you should have a copy on your computer. Look in this folder in your computer: C:\ProgramData\The Master Genealogist v9 Installer\Update You should see a file called tmg9setup.exe -- that is the installer. Double-click on it to run it. If that works, copy it to a safe place for future use.

Paul, In my view you do that by making a separate copy of the image for exhibits, putting them in folders you reserve for exhibits only. Assuming you are still keeping the originals, that's really the same as making them internal as far as storage space goes, since that makes a copy too, but hides it with the TMG data files. By making them internal you are inflating the size of each backup of your TMG Project, which you should be making often, taking up disk space and increasing the time it takes to make each one.

Colin, Have you looked for the tags in the Master Event List? You can search it by Tag Type without regard to who the tag is attached to, and then edit it from there.

You're welcome, John.

Tom, I don't believe you can do it in a single step. You can however do it in three steps with a Flag. 1. Create a custom flag with values NY, and use the secondary output of the List of People to change the flag to Y for a group defined with a filter consisting of ID# = the ID number of the grandfather, and use Add their descendants for 2 generations. 2. Use the secondary output of the List of People to change the flag back to N for a group defined with a filter consisting of ID# = the ID number of the grandfather, and use Add their descendants for 1 generations. 3. Create the list you want with the List of People report and a filter of the flag = Y.

You're welcome John. In this case reading the books wouldn't have helped. GTMOOTMG per-dates the introduction of the NarrativeChildren tag, and it was considered to advanced a feature for Primer.

John, There are options on the Miscellaneous tab of report Options that allow you change certain aspects of that statement for all couples in the report. To modify the results for individual couples, including an "I didn't bother to look" statement, you have to use a NarrativeChildren tag for each couple. The default output of that Tag produces essentially the same output as the default statement, so you have to customize it to say something different. You can do this either individually for each Tag, or globally for the Tag Type. If you want a "library" of custom statements you can create Roles for the Tag Type and assign the desired one to each couple. There is a description of how the NarrativeChildren tag works, and some suggested custom Sentences, in my article Customizing the “Children of” Statement.

Maldin, You change the sex of a person by changing that person's Sex Flag. To do that open the Flags window.

I agree with everything Jim and Michael said, but I think you have a mis-conception here. Putting the exhibit files in the Exhibit folder does not make them internal. Internal exhibits are copies of your original exhibit files that are stored within the TMG database files, not in the exhibit folder. You cannot see internal exhibits as separate files. You specify whether new exhibits are to be external or internal in Preferences > Program Options > Exhibits. If you choose internal a copy is made and stored in the Project files. The original is no longer used by TMG. If you choose external only a link to the image file is saved, and the file remains where it was.

NO, NO, NO!!! Never include the folders containing database files as something to be monitored by a program automatically running in the background, especially if that program could monitor/touch/backup the files while the database is being used. That includes automatic backup systems and automatic virus checking programs. Their background actions can cause problems while any database program is running, not just TMG, as many posts from users on this Forum will show. Instead, do periodic manual backups yourself while in TMG to the TMG Backups folder. Then manually copy that latest backup file to a folder which is being automatically backed up externally as you describe. Michael, He didn't say the backup software was accessing the files while they are in use. You are of course right if that's what's happening. But it is also very possible to set up an automatic system that doesn't touch files when they are in use, and in my view that is the only reliable system for most users. Any backup system that depends on manual action by the user is no backup system for most of us. Twinspappy, Make sure your automatic system does not try to copy TMG project files while TMG is open, or backups while they are being made. If you do that you will be fine, and much more likely to actually have current backups then if you depend on manual action unless you are a lot more disciplined than most of us.

I've found a few tags with local sentences in every language too, which I never created. I corresponded with John Cardinal on this, who said he had seen it a few times too. He suspects it was caused by some bug in TMG long ago, hopefully fixed. The biggest risk seems to be if you should want to actually output in one of those languages in which case this sentence would override the actual sentence in that language. I've never pursued trying to repair it as it didn't seem a big enough issue to bother with.

From the TMG page on the Wholly Genes website: "Major upgrades (e.g., v8->v9) are no longer available. Full installers and free/minor upgrades (e.g., v9.00->v9.04) are still available as described below." You could contact WG and ask. Or you can see if a reseller still has copies available.

Carol, I have run (well, tested) TMG 9 on an XP system and it works fine. I would suggest your buy and use it. There are a few new features that you might find useful, and some bugs have been fixed since the older versions. And, should you someday decide to change to another program I think you will likely get the bet import by working from the latest version of TMG. There is a list of the differences between the silver and gold edition on the WG website. I think the biggest one is the ability to output reports to a word processor. I think that is essential when you get ready to produce some reports to put your work into a form others can read. It lets you adjust formatting and edit the text, remove or re-arrange text, and generally get the output in the best shape.

Familyprayer, Version 9 works fine, and includes several helpful updates and some bug fixes.I would think you would want them, and also if you do consider moving to another program someday, doing so from the latest version of TMG should be the most successful. I don't know what you found about TMG 9 not working, but most of the current issues are around Windows 8 removing the unlock codes and requiring it to be re-entered. This is caused by Windows 8, and so far as I know applies equally to older versions of TMG as well. There is a fix for that which has been posted here often.

John, I'm afraid not.

Pat, I replied to your post on the same issue on the TMG list.

Art, Remember to also keep a copy your serial number and the email address you used when you purchased v9 in a safe place too. One good solution is to keep a copy of both in a text files stored the same place as the installer.

You're welcome, Jo Dean.

Jo Dean, The in/at issue is an option for each report, on the Places tab of report Options. You can choose "at" "in" or nothing. Changing text in the census tag output requires modifying the Sentence. You can go that globally by editing the census Tag Type from the Master Tag Type List. It's a simple change that you can easily do. The "Customizing Tags" article on my website describes this, but probably provides too much information. It's no doubt simpler to just follow your nose and do it.

Jon, I have no clue what's causing the issue, but I would suggest a work-around if you haven't tried it already (actually, I turned off that prompt years ago in favor of this solution). Put a backup button on the custom toolbar, and you can make a backup with a single click. Not only when you exit, but any time you have put in more data than you would care to have to re-enter.

Beetle, I see the same thing. It seems to happen in reports sent to screen and to PDF. But not when you send them to Word. I don't know of any way to correct that. I'll report it.