Paradox 9 / 10 and Windows 7

Hi, has anyone had a chance to try Paradox  9 or 10 with beta versions of Windows 7?

Hi Paul,

I've tested Paradox 9, 10, and 11 on Windows 7 Build 7100 and so far it works just like on Windows XP. This includes working immediately after installing with none of the extensive tweaks I documented in my Can I install Paradox on Vista post. I'll test more on the RC or RTM soon and report more.

This also supports my longterm stand that the exit errors and other errors with Paradox 10 and 11 on Vista were a Microsoft caused problem, not a Corel caused problem.

Here's a screenshot of Paradox 10 on Windows 7 (no error on exit too):
Click to view fullscreen...

I have installed P9 on W7-64 (in the 32but mode as I understand it) & my existing apps run fine (no errors) but the speed performance has dropped dramatically. I experienced the same issue when I allowed XP to upgrade to SP3 - then I reverted back to solve the problem - not possible with W7. It was suggested to me that similar performance drops have been associated with virus scanning (i.e. try to scan exchanges of information with the file server). Is anyone aware of any settings in W7 that must be adjusted to run P9 apps at regular speeds?

>>As much as you have recommeded we all move to another database...

Now that Windows 7 is out and Paradox 9, 10, and 11 appear to run fine on it, I can now support sticking with Paradox with a clear conscious. I even updated my The Future of Paradox post.

Now, if we can get Corel to take Paradox out of maintenance mode and make minor upgrades to it, that would at least keep power-users using it.

I use Paradox 9 extensively for my work.  It started out working well with Windows 7, but now it crashes several times a day, usually when I am running a sort operation or when I am restructuring a table.  Needless to say this is very frustrating and costs me a lot of work time.  Often the procedure I just completed is lost, and I have to re-do whatever it was.

I haven't looked into upgrading Paradox yet.  Has anyone found a version of Paradox that doesn't crash with Windows 7? 

Anonymous: I have had frequent crashes and seem to have repaired them. There was so much going on at that time, that I can't quite remember how I did it. Do, however, click  help when the warning appears and record the error. Google that. It was something  like error 30000033x - one of those, which generally indicate that the program is reaching out to non existent memory addresses. As I said previously, I vaguely remember that there may have been something to do with kernel32.dll - but do not remember what the exact fix was. there was one.

One thing I believe is that continuing to work after a warning cost me data, which, although entered, did not save. I would close the program any time there is a warning, then reopen. I have a link to the file I use most often directly on the quick start bar to facilitate this.

As for a better Paradox, I can tell you that X3 is possibly more problem laden than 9 or 10, and I am still considering backtracking to a previous version. It was supposedly created for Vista, but does not work with at all with it. X5 has an upgrade, which will probably make it work with W7.  If you can get a deal on an upgrade and Paraadox is important to you, you might want to try. I am personally reluctant to change now that things are mostly working.

I think that there are a handful of things that work less well with W7 than they did with XP, and, as long as you don't use them,  you will not have great problems.  Paradox will function beautifully. If however, these are part of your system,  there are many.

One of these is the storage of blob fields in the program. All professionals will tell you that this is a bad idea, but then why does Paradox advertise this as one of the advantages and who how in the sample files. (just pondering, there). If you DO store blobs, then there are two things to avoid: 1) large files. This, I learned the hard way, also means storing pure documents, not mixed...ie, do not store a document with an embedded jpg.  Formatted Memo fields, which are just in rtf, are also, I am told, dicey, as BDE and Paradox both have issues with the .rtf format. I could not say, but anything that helps.

good luck. Please report back;.

While I had a lot of issues with Vista, Paradox 10 has installed and run well in Home Premium.  That's the key I think, Home premium, out of the box (not upgraded from Vista).  I have successfully installed it without hitches on 5 machines from Wordperfect Pro 2002 discs, and did not need to install any of the subsequent patches from Corel that i had to do with XP.

So my advice is to start clean if you have that luxury. Newly installed WIn 7 Home Premium with Service Pack 1, then install Paradox first and test it well.  It cannot be plain vanilla Home, as that doesn't even network.  Yeesh.

Mike Burcher

First the short answer, yes.

Now for some details, I only have the Ultimate Edition but the differences between Pro and Ultimate will NOT make any difference. However, the Home edition does disable some business-like features but none of them should be required for Paradox to run. I'm positive Paradox will run equally well on all versions of Windows 7 including the Home edition.

Thanks Mike, that is reassuring. Much appreciated and I look forward to your further investigations. As much as you have recommeded we all move to another database, for us this would be inconvenient and a very costly exercise. Paradox does what we need it to do and probably will do so for many years, unless we are forced to change by technology! Regards Paul.

Thanks so much for the encouragement.  Paradox is such a good strong product that to discard it would be a shame.  Have used it for more than ten years and it has served faithfully and has filled all our needs.  Good to know Windows 7 will continue its progress for us.

Ruby Yarter

Will it run on all three versions of Windows 7 Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate?

Thanks

scott

Glad to read Paradox 9 and 10 work well with Windows 7.  Does this include both the 32 bit, and 64 bit versions of Windows 7?  

I just upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium from Vista. Paradox works fine now that I updated my aliases however I initially installed it to the default path for a 32 bit program -Program Files (x86).You need to install it to "Program Files" (not x86) as it is in xp. Remember to do this for both the program and the shared files. What a relief. I was using it in Vista in virtual xp mode which as a real pain.

Makemie Woods has just solved the problem that has frustrated me for years.

you are describing situations where you have left-over lock files in your folders.. not to be rude, but that's Paradox 101, and it basically means that you've been copying files while Paradox is open and/or you have been having Abort problems that you haven't addressed..

Paradox puts lock files in the folders you are accessing, to control multi-user sharing.. when you leave the folder, or leave Paradox, the lock files (or the pointers to you, if others are still there) go away automatically.. it's just like "the last person must turn off the lights"..

as I said at the beginning, if you copy a folder of files to another folder, another machine, etc., and there are still lock files there, that'll stop you dead in your tracks, one way or another..

if it's because the files were open and in use, don't do that..

if it's because there are Abort problems, you need to research and cure the Abort problems, because the Abort problems can lead to file damage and data loss, even if you're not copying them..

--

Steven Green - Myrtle Beach, South Carolina USA
http://www.OasisTradingPost.com

I appreciate Microsoft's concern for preventing damage to our hard drives by malicious software

I have Office 2000 Small Business on my Vista machine.. when I installed Excel, it made me go thru all the "unknown source" verification stuff.. that really inspires confidence in Microsoft (sigh)

--

Steven Green - Myrtle Beach, South Carolina USA
http://www.OasisTradingPost.com

I concur - Paradox 9 works really well on Windows 7 Home Premium

(Phew - can get on with this instead of wondering what else to use for the next 6 years !)

I've edited my previous post to show that I have tested Paradox 9 successfully on Windows 7 Home Premium. Actually, it's more than a test; no problems whatsoever after 5 days intensive use.

I would guess that as Mike's tested Ultimate, and I'm using Home Premium, it's unlikely the Pro version would be any different.

Since was unable to get pdox10 to run on Vista, I upgraded to Windows 7 home premium from vista home premium.  I am getting the same BDE errors (network initialization failed; cannot intialiaze BDE) that i got in Vista.  Does the fact that I am using the upgrade make a difference?

I have Paradox 10 from Wordperfect office 2002.  And for whatever reason, the BDE administrator does not install (even though the installer package says it is going to install it.)  The installation hangs at the end.  I have tried installing just the utilities, just paradox, and installing the whole suite.  Same outcome.  Went to the Borland site to try get a BDE utility, it denies me permission to download.

I look forward to your advice.

Thanks.

Nevermind.  Days of frustration have now been resolved.  There was an old c:\PDOXUSRS.NET file from when I first tried installing it on Vista in February, which of course still had the Vista permissions (or lack threof)  Deleted the file, and everything worked beautifully.  I have hope!  Hallelujah!

To be fair, Vista's controls for the lock file in the root directory was a new problem, it couldn't be removed by the program on exit.  So when I installed Windows 7, the Vista lock file was still there, and wouldn't allow the program to initialize. 

I appreciate Microsoft's concern for preventing damage to our hard drives by malicious software, however in 7 I think there needs to be another level of security that is "I'm not an idiot, show me this message the first time this program tries to alter my computer or registry or whatever, but don't show it to me again after the first time."

Howdy

For months I have been using RC7100 and Paradox 11 (from X3) has worked fine.  I've just installed Windows 7 Pro and now can't get that pesky pdxregcl.exe to let go.  All the fixes worked with the RC.  But now . . . arghh! 

I've it disabled from startup through msconfig.  I've removed all entries from the Paradox\Programs directory and the registry.  I've left the EXE file in the directory and removed the command from the RUN section of the registry (all the other entries as well).  I've commented all the INI instructions so they don't execute.  If I remove the EXE file from the Paradox directory, then Paradox won't run without the installation disc which reinstalls the little pest.

I'm not an advanced user, but I have a small program I've been using for my business for several years.  Right now it's slow and a good time to do this installation.  I will need this to work properly by the first of the year.  (I know-messing with it on Christmas).

Thanks

Karen

I am using 11 (X3) with frequent abort issues and the usual pdxregcln annoyances. Haven't been collecting them.  It frequently requires the startup disk to initialize. I have reinstalled it twice and may do it again. Continue experiencing the 4GB "insufficient space" issue on a 1TB drive. These are fresh installs within the last two weeks. I don't blame Microsoft, for once.

Makemie Woods has just solved the problem that has frustrated me for years. Deleting the c:/PDOXUSERS.NET file allows the Paradox 7 files from my XP machine to run on Paradox 11 using Windows 7 professional.  Thanks

This is very late, but a word to that.

You need to set your net directory on 7 in a folder other than root - ie., c:\something\netshare rather than c:\netshare

These are set in BDE Admin, found in the Control Panel.

After installing Paradox 11 in a Windows 7 environment, I hardly had any problems - except this: the date filed in the Project Viewer has the "wrong" format. I'm in Europe and use a European format for all fields, but the Project Viewer has mm/d/yyyy and I cannot find a way to change that.

Does anyone happen to know where it gets its (date) format from?

Jim Cla

After getting my newest computer 2 1/2  years ago with Windows 7 Professional, I ran Paradox 9 for about the first 2 years (with only the occasional crash during a sorting operation).  However, now the Project Viewer has quit working.  It can be opened but zero files show in my working directory.  Has anyone else had this problem and figured out how to fix it?

You can set the date format in the BDE Administrator or directly in Paradox.

"filed" = "field"

:-)

Re: Project Viewer date field - I think its taking that from the default Windows Short format. Mine is currently showing in a custom format that I like. (dd-Mmm-yy hh.mm.ssa)

(Set using Start -> Control Panels -> Region and Language: then Formats tab and Short Date and Short Time fields. To get exotic, use the Additional Settings button.)

Peace,
David Cheney

Hello All,

Does anyone know were I can purchase Paradox 9 or higer version?

Thanks for your support.

just google it. You will have to purchase Corel Office Pro to get it. It is NOT sold as a separate software. If you have old P files, you can view and edit them on Paradox runtime, which is free on the Corel site. They cannot, however, be altered.

You can get Word Perfect Office on Amazon, EBay and from any number of sites. If you want to buy it new, althoough the general wisdom right now is that it is not a good platform to be starting at this time, you can mitigate the financial damage by pruchasing a much older version, even oem, if you have a non branded computer (or built your own or buy new hardware) and purchase the update. Those of us working with X3 (11) and Paradox 10 are having extreme challenges on both Vista (you cannot, essentially, run Paradox on Vista. Aside from an annoying error at shutdown, data corruption is frequent enough to advise against it), and Paradox has rudely taken all patches necessary for the product from their web site, so you will want to enter with the latest, $450 package in the hopes (there is no guarantee with Corel) that they have taken at least a little trouble to update the issues that plague it.

If you are running XP (I am considering a dual boot system with xp for Paradox at this late date, or learning sql with Ruby to escape Paradox) you can get a "legacy" version of Word Perfect Office. I would stick with 9 or ten, which will serve you as well as the later versions. Possibly better.

Hello All,

Does anyone know were I can purchase Paradox 9 or higer version?

Thanks for your support.

Just Google it. You cannot purchase Paradox any version independently. It comes with the Word Perfect Office Suite as nearly an afterthought. It is not cheap, but prices have gone down. Here is a new version for $200 http://www.ulead.com/wordperfect/setA_wpx5.html?trkid=NASEMSPfamily.  There are a few legal workarounds. One is to purchase a much older version, second hand with license is also permissible, then get the upgrade.Another is for student, who get a considerable discount (under $100 for the suite). If you build your own computers or repair with upgrades,  you can also get a legal OEM version. Corel offers the latest version directly (the suite) for about $250 or less for an upgrade.

(Software for less offers P10 for $92 - fair enough - but I don't know the details and is is a "license'..so caution advised http://www.softwareforless.com/product-PARADOX-10-LIC-EN-251-350-WIN-628984.html)

I would advise the latest product, since I for one believe the issues above are due to Corel's interaction or lack of it with Microsoft (if you are on Mac, you need to do a new search, but I seem to remember there were some pretty good deals for Apple OS).

With all notebooks now running 64bit OS 's, I'd worry that legacy versions don' or won't work well. The great drawback of Paradox is that once you have committed, transfer can be dicey, at least if you store some of your data as full documents, pictures or other files. (Blob or object), so you want something that you won't have to transfer to another system.

With that in mind you  might want to take a second look at Access (same issue..not stand alone and pricier but far more flexible and almost equally user friendly) or Filemaker Pro, which would be my first choice if I were to start again.  SQL based databases seem to need more programming skills, but are on the front edge of database development and promise a longer usage life. (Note that Wikipedia lists Paradox as a "Historical Database", ie legacy, ie antiquated).

Filemaker pro is also cross platform: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileMaker_Pro

That being said, Paradox is a highly user friendly and useful database with a moderate learning curve. If someone with some foresight had bought / would buy it from Corel, where it more languishes as the appendix of what was once the top selling office suite in America, or if Corel would devote some time to it, it would still be a great program.

One more note: You can download Paradox runtime for free and run existing databases on it or let your clients run databases  you develop on Paradox. You can also run Paradox on a server (Web), but I haven't read the documentation. It will import and export from most file formats, again, with the drawback that any blob data will be lost. Blob data cannot be searched.

I doubt that too many m ore are currently buying Paradox, but some like me are trying to make the existing files work.

First, I disagree with Make Prestwood that the Paradox issues are Windows issues. The fact is that Corel actively marketed Paradox and the new Corel Suite that in came with for Vista. When it didn't work they neither offered a discount on updates or a fix (actually they offered a fix which disappeared in very short time and now cannot be found) but promoted the next version of Corel Office, which surely has as many flaws. There is no way not to fault this.

Second I run Paradox on three machines: XP, which works well, Vista, which is far more of a catastrophe than we all initially realized (It has corrupted at least one and probably more files..the MB structure specifically) Windows 7 home something which seems to run it tolerably if not fabulously and now Winidows 7 Pro, which does not. Paradox exhibits the same behavior on closing on Windows 7 Pro as it does in Vista. That bodes ill. I am trying to get my system to run it in XP mode, which is offered in 7Pro, but am having some challenges getting that to work (It seems you need a better system than this, although it is not that old).  The ideal for those who still absolutely need the program would be either a dual boot system with XP for Paradox sessions, if that fits your needs, or the XP mode under W7 Pro. Make sure, however, that your system will run it if you plan that route. 2012 update.

The alternative is of course to switch. I can't.

In our medical offices we are forced to upgrade to windows 7 otherwise we would no be able to use Practice Fusion.  Now Paradox can only be used a one (1) computer and we have 3 girls in each office that have to do billing, we are certainly in big trouble!

Adam -

webmaster@drparnes.com

I am not sure what your problem is. We have been using paradox 9 and 10 applications on multiple computers on our hospital network for a long time now without any new dramas...

I have installed Paradox for X5 and Paradox 9 on my Windows 7 home premium machine (runnning at the same time). Both apps work well on this system. The only regret is that I cannot get the Distribution expert in Paradox 9 to work on Home Premium. It keeps crashing.

Also, I have Paradox 9 running on Vista which works fine and the Distribution Expert also works. Unfortunately on Vista, the distribution expert crashes if you try to browse to a local PC folder. This did not happen on XP/2000. It works just fine in every other respect. Paradox 9 does create an error message when you close it in Vista but this does not create a problem, I just ignore it.

All I can suggest is to make sure that you have Paradox set to run as administrator. If you do not have it set up like this, then maybe there is your problem.

I am surprised that Windows 7 Pro behaves as you say and plan to try it myself so that I can see the problem. Have you made sure that your BDE settings are set appropriately? (eg.,BLOCK SIZE = 16384, SHAREDMEMSIZE=16384, MAXBUFSIZE16384, MAXFILEHANDLES=255,MEMSIZE=32,MINBUFSIZE=2048)

Laura

I have installed Paradox for X5 and Paradox 9 on my Windows 7 home premium machine (runnning at the same time). Both apps work well on this system. The only regret is that I cannot get the Distribution expert in Paradox 9 to work on Home Premium. It keeps crashing.

Also, I have Paradox 9 running on Vista which works fine and the Distribution Expert also works. Unfortunately on Vista, the distribution expert crashes if you try to browse to a local PC folder. This did not happen on XP/2000. It works just fine in every other respect. Paradox 9 does create an error message when you close it in Vista but this does not create a problem, I just ignore it.

All I can suggest is to make sure that you have Paradox set to run as administrator. If you do not have it set up like this, then maybe there is your problem.

I am surprised that Windows 7 Pro behaves as you say and plan to try it myself so that I can see the problem. Have you made sure that your BDE settings are set appropriately? (eg.,BLOCK SIZE = 16384, SHAREDMEMSIZE=16384, MAXBUFSIZE16384, MAXFILEHANDLES=255,MEMSIZE=32,MINBUFSIZE=2048)

Laura

This thread is about Paradox 9/10. I am running X3 (11) which may be another issue. I have 10 somewhere and am seriously considering removing x3, although I don't think the changes are that drastic.

One more Windows 7 issue:  It is not or no longer possible to remove fields from the field structure interface. Names can be changed and fields can be rearranged or added, but not removed. This could just as easily be an X3 change.

is there any advantage of switching from paradox 10 to paradox 12?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anonymous

is there any advantage of switching from paradox 10 to paradox 12? --- pc

Is Paradox 12 the version shipping with WordPerfect Office Professional X6?

(X5 shipped with Paradox v11.0.0.676 - which is the latest version I know of.)

Peace,
David Cheney

My company has been using paradox databses for last ten years. There are over a hungred users. Some of the paradox tables are very large as a result of data collected over the years which is making the serching and updating of the tables a slow process. what can one do to make paradox run faster in terms of accessing data from the tables?

I have 11, and I see no advantage. However, since 11 was developed o work with Vista (it didn't) There is a possibility that 12 is the corrected version and does or works better with W7. I would also be interested in the answer with Windows 7 in mind.

Paraox 12 is the version shipping with word perfect X6. I searched thru Corel's web site but it does not provide much discussion on the differences/enhancements from previous versions. 

Not surprising, all things considered.

I contacted Corel tech support just to see what they'd say. They indicated that X6 ships with Paradox 11 - didn't offer any information about what fixes (if any) might be included. (Which is what I had asked.)

Peace,
David Cheney

Have there been any actual  changes since x3?  Paradox improvement seems far from a priority for Corel.

There have been no actual changes since Pdox10, in Suite 2000, and there never will be any further changes. Version 11 was just a re-compile of Pdox10 with the SPs applied. The BDE itself was also depricated (discontinued) in 2000.