Small Business Software Tip: Managing Aging Software

At Roaring Pajamas, we rely heavily on various software programs that make running our small business more efficient. We also rely heavily on our friend Sam Battles, of Sam Battles Networks, our IT consultant who fixes most of our PC problems, moves data over when we get new laptops and keeps up posted on useful small business software tips. Sam recently sent me this tip for users of QuickBooks, Quicken and other aging software programs. I am passing along his sage advice, in the event you find it as helpful as we do.

For those of you who use Intuit products like QuickBooks, Quicken, TurboTax or other aging software and who may find these ‘broken’ after a Windows 10 upgrade, read on. A little technical, but things you need to know.

Middle of the night last night, out of my ‘memory archive’ came a ‘trick’ or a work around if you wish. Ten or more years ago, I had a customer who needed to keep his Lotus123 spreadsheet program alive but was unable to have the Lotus Suite of programs work. It worked in Windows XP, but the advent of Windows 7 was when it stopped working. If you remember, it was with Windows 7 that there were options for both 32 and 64 bit installs. Then in researching this, there was a suggestion that did work. It was, in the install process to choose the install ‘location’ outside of the more recent “C:\Program Files (x86)” which was the 32 bit location or just “C:\Program Files” which is the new 64 bit location. In the case of Lotus123, I chose to install to the ‘Root’ (C:\Lotus) rather than to either of the above-mentioned program file locations. Lotus123 now worked as designed. Programs do not have to be installed in these two locations to work and in some cases are better off in today’s world installed outside of either of those locations. Most software, either by choosing ‘custom install’ or just following the prompts, takes you to a place where you can choose the Folder/File location where you want to install the program. One word of caution, you should create a folder under C:\ for this. For example “C:\Intuit” for QuickBooks would be a good idea, otherwise all the files will go to just C: and garbage up the root of the drive which is not good. Just FYI, and for interest sake, I was also able to make a 2000 version of Microsoft Flight Simulator work this way for another customer.

This morning I installed both Quicken2006 and QuickBooks Pro 2013 software on a small business computer that was upgraded from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10. Both installations worked. Since I am a fairly ‘simple’ user of both Quicken and QuickBooks, I have no way of knowing if every available ‘feature’ in both will work, but my gut feeling is they will.

The small business customer who still does use and depend on his Lotus123 software informed me that it has continued to work even after the Windows 10 upgrade. This is because I had done what I described above when it was a new Windows 7 PC.

I hope this helps those of you with small businesses who might be struggling with software, the Windows 10 upgrade and getting everything to work.

Roaring Pajamas knows well the value of both time and resources as one utilizes programs to help run an efficient and successful business. Hopefully you find this small business software tip as useful as we do. Please let us know if this is helpful and if you’d like to see more posts like this one in the future. Happy computing!