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Cheryl

Reports in 32 bit

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I know you can't do reports running TMG on a 64 bit computer. I been putting people off on some reports for nearly a year. I finally decided to try again [forget why I stopped before but it was when I had Vista] using Windows 7 on a 32 bit computer with 2 GB memory. I have an additional 3.8 GB of memory in speed boost which gives me more than 32 bit can handle so I have the max memory although I don't think that is the problem.

 

The current report involves 436 people and only BMDB dates and locations, not a major report. When I tried a descendant indented chart printed to PDF it crashed TMG. I then tried saving as WordPerfect. It created 19536 pages, all of which had nothing but lines on them. I then tried a descendant narrative with severely restricted information. It crashed TMG. Windows think I should try always running the program as administrator but that was hanging.

 

So, reports are not working for me in 32 bit either. I'm open to suggestions. I didn't try Word which I don't use but can be open in WP and OO and then printed to PDF.

 

It's very frustrating. Having used TMG since prior to version 1 I am unlikely to switch but no one I know is likely to buy either. I've gotten some unkind email from people I talked into switching to TMG back about version 6. It seems to me it would be useful, particularly if TMG 8 continues to be delayed, to find a workaround for reports.

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I did come accross an article about downloading a free "Windows XP mode" for windows 7 (I suspect a virtual window). Has anyone tested this with reports on 32 or 64 bit machines?

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I have a 64bit Windows 7 ultimate system. Last night with another application I had a need for XP, so I tried installing the virtual XP mode. It was surprisingly easy and worked very well with the application I needed. I have not tried to install TMG in it so I can't speak to your specific question, but I was happy with how my SQL Server worked in the XP virtual window.

 

Sheila Altenbernd

 

I did come accross an article about downloading a free "Windows XP mode" for windows 7 (I suspect a virtual window). Has anyone tested this with reports on 32 or 64 bit machines?

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Yes, I run TMG 7 in XP Mode for reports output to word processor. I find that it works, but is less than totally satisfactory because of the very slow performance I get in XP Mode. If there is a solution for that I've not found it. Here's some details:

 

- This XP Mode is not related to setting the "Compatibility" on the Properties screen of the shortcut you start TMG with - that's a totally different thing. It doesn't help, and is not needed at all.

 

- You have to have the Professional, Ultimate, or Enterprise version of Windows 7 in order to install "XP Mode."

 

- To install XP Mode, you must install Microsoft Virtual Machine, which is free.

 

- You then install XP Mode, which is essentially a 32-bit version of Windows XP. It is also free. It's a huge download, as you would expect, because it's a full operating system, and I found it to be a long download some months ago when I did it.

 

- Under XP Mode, you can run Windows XP in a window within your Windows 7 operation. It runs on a "virtual hard drive" that is created on your Windows 7 C:\ drive. From Windows XP you can also see all the drives in Windows 7, and can access them within your applications, provided they are able to use network drives (TMG7 is, but some very old apps can't). If it's possible to do the reverse, that is make the virtual hard drive visible from Windows 7, I've not figured out how.

 

- Once you install XP Mode, you can install TMG7 in Windows XP, in addition, if you want, to installing it normally in Windows 7.

 

- TMG 7, including the output to word processors, runs without issue under XP Mode. But my experience is that performance is awful. I've not been able to tweak any settings to fix this, even though I've tried to expand the amount of memory available to XP Mode. Unless someone can find a solution to this, use of TMG7 under XP Mode as a normal method is not feasible.

 

- Because of the performance issues, I use the XP Mode copy only for running reports that need to go to word processor format.

 

- If you keep your normal Project on a Windows 7 drive, you can access it from the copy of TMG7 that runs in XP Mode - you don't even have to close it in the copy running in Windows 7.

 

- If you have external exhibits in your Project, there are some issues when you open the project in XP Mode. Namely, the path to the exhibit folder is absolute, and by default is under your "Documents" folder, which is under your user name. If you simply open it from XP Mode, that path will not be valid. TMG immediately recognizes that, and asks if you want to change the default exhibits path - say No. But if you try to run reports that contain exhibits they will not be found.

 

- There is at least one solution. It requires you to have a second drive defined in Windows 7 - say D:\ - and put your exhibits (and optionally the project) on that. Then, in XP Mode, map that shared drive so it has the same drive letter. Now the path will read the same in both machines, and the exhibits are accessible without issue.

 

- If you want the copy of TMG7 in XP Mode to share the same report configurations, etc., as the copy in Windows 7, you can do that by use of a Data_Path.txt file.

 

- There is a separate issue with the PDF writer under 64-bit Windows 7. A solution is described in a TMG 7 Forum post by Jim Byrum. After that fix, reports to PDF work perfectly.

 

I wrote a post to TMG-L on using TMG 7 under XP Moded on 30 Nov 2009 - available in the archive here. It has some details I've not repeated here, but there are some updates above that aren't included in my November post.

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Terry,

 

Many thanks for that informative "article", I've only just had time to study it. I must have missed it on Rootsweb, or thought by the time I was looking at a new Laptop, the report problem would be fixed. But as you say, it might not just be TMG that one temporarily needs XP for.

 

So, simplest and cheapest option seems to be to keep an XP machine (preferably networked), and run TMG reports from that on the files on the Win7 machine (Ideally networked, or copy to USB drive).

 

The more expensive and messier way, and possibly slower on a laptop, is to buy Professional, Ultimate, or Enterprise Windows 7. I'll have to check out what benefits (or downside) there are for a Home user in any of those Op systems.

 

Jim O

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Many thanks for that informative "article"...
You're welcome, Jim. :)

 

So, simplest and cheapest option seems to be to keep an XP machine (preferably networked), and run TMG reports from that on the files on the Win7 machine (Ideally networked, or copy to USB drive).

Yes, that's my conclusion.

The more expensive and messier way, and possibly slower on a laptop, is to buy Professional, Ultimate, or Enterprise Windows 7. I'll have to check out what benefits (or downside) there are for a Home user in any of those Op systems.

I think they are few for most home users, unless you really need the XP Mode for something you can't update and can't do without. I installed it to run several old programs, and mostly I've found that less than satisfactory, and have switched to replacements that will run on a modern OS.

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Terry/Jim

 

I agree with Terry that XP Mode within Win 7 is a bit cumbersome for running TMG (bring on V8!) but I find it a really useful facility. I have a lot of CDs which I have purchased with various Aust State BDMs on them as well as some old Cemetery CDs that wont run under Win 7 but will happily run in XP Mode.

 

Terry is probably correct about performance but it isn't critical with these CDs. I certainly don't notice any performance issues but I do have a pretty quick machine.

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Neil,

 

You have motivated me to do some further tests, which have been illuminating. There is a known issue with XP Mode (and other MicroSoft Virtual PC applications) when sharing drives with the host operating system. I have verified that the supposed fix is installed on my system. Still, my experiments today demonstrate that the awful performance I have experienced is caused by having the project and report definition files on the Windows 7 drive, and accessing them from the copy of TMG installed in XP Mode.

 

When I use only files located on XP Mode's "local" drive, performance is quite good. So this leads to the following pair of options for those who want to run TMG7 in XP Mode in order to send reports to a word processor:

 

1. You can install and run TMG7 normally on Windows 7 64-bit, doing everything except run reports to a word processor. Install a second copy of TMG7 in XP Mode, and run reports to a word processor file from there. Then you have two sub-options:

 

a. You can access the Project on the Windows 7 drive, as described in my post above, and suffer very slow performance.

 

b. You can copy the the Project to the XP Mode local drive for better performance at the expense of taking the time to copy it. If you do that by backup and restore, that's not too much time. But you have to be careful not to make corrections in the copy on XP Mode, or if you do, you have to transfer that copy back to the Windows 7 drive.

 

2. You can install TMG7 in XP Mode and use that as your main mode of operation. I'm not sure the response is quite as good as when running directly in Windows 7, but it's pretty good. Issues:

 

- It does take a while to boot up XP Mode each time you start it.

 

- You cannot make backups of the files on XP Mode drives from within Windows 7, so you must make all your backups from within XP Mode. You can probably make that work by using TMG's backup process and directing the backup files to a Windows 7 drive.

 

- If you have external exhibits, you have further backup issues that you must deal with.

 

So, there are more options than I originally said, but none of them really great. :(

 

Terry

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Terry,

In previous response you said

"- There is at least one solution. It requires you to have a second drive defined in Windows 7 - say D:\ - and put your exhibits (and optionally the project) on that. Then, in XP Mode, map that shared drive so it has the same drive letter. Now the path will read the same in both machines, and the exhibits are accessible without issue."

 

I have always made it my practice to keep programs etc on my C: drive and as much "data" as possible on another drive or partition E: . (Various reasons, image backup size and restore, data portability/backup, speed if second drive, etc). I do the same with TMG. This includes my projects, and anything else I can redirect there. If this practice was used with your method above, would this not negate the need to copy projects etc. Likewise with exhibits, but that is not something I use yet.

 

Jim O

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Jim,

 

If you map the "E on Jim" drive (as seen in XP Mode) to be "E:\" in XP Mode, and open the project from that mapped drive, you solve all the exhibit issues. But, you are still accessing the remote drive, and that's what's causing the performance penalty I see. I've not gotten the M/S fix for that to work for me.

 

So, if you find that to be the case, either live with it (as I do because I make very few reports to a word processor) or copy the Project to the the local XP Mode drive to make reports from it.

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