Going back to 3.7 from 4.0?

[John Riggins]

After about 2 weeks of headaches and inefficiency I have decided to take us back to 3.7.
I will be getting some help from a B&S tech. to make the switch back.

I have one problem: all of the programs that we created and/or used and saved while using 4.0 will be unusable until we save them "as" 3.7. We can easily do this as I have an offline seat that I will continue to run 4.0 on and when we run into the "converted" programs we can jump over to the offline seat and change it back.

What I was hoping to do is search through our CMM programs directory and find all of these 4.0 programs and then go through it one day and get it all done so that the operators do not have to deal with it.

Anyone know of a way to flag these files?

[rebeldude]

I'm not sure, I always insert V-37. V36 into the name

[Paul Sarrach]

No you can save it as an older version. Choose Save As, at the bottum choose 3.7 version, save it in a 3.7 file folder

[John Riggins]

I think I have answered my own question.

I looked in the directories using Explorer and noticed 2 different files that I do not see in 3.7 directories.

One is a .BAS file (COMPILE.BAS)
the other is simply named "t" and seems to have no extension.

I see these in every directory where I have a 4.0 program. Fortunately a couple of years ago I started putting every program in its own directory.... this has been helpful in many ways.

Anyone know what is up with these 2 files?

[Mike Johnston]

I'm not sure about the 2 files... I just wanted to chime in and say that you are not alone in switching back. The ONLY time I will use 4.0 again is when we are given a customer supplied program. It is not user friendly and basically just sucks. I'm not sure what those guys were thinking when they came up with that garbage... Just venting, thanks for the opportunity Mr. Riggins...

[Matthew D. Hoedeman]

Well, as far as I know, there isn't any 'flag' that you can search for to find what version the programs were made/saved in. That being said....

Except for any programs that you have created in V4.0, you SHOULD have a back-ups for and you can just pull them back onto the computer (as well as the probe files). If you have done this, it is just a matter of coping the backups over the top of the 'new' ones and you should be good to go. You and or your IT people should see to this (you should have backups done at a very minimum once a week, I do it once a day).

New versions always call for extreme measures on YOUR part to ensure ease of data recovery so when you find that the new version is too buggy, unusable, not to your liking, etc. and you can go on with your job, namely inspecting product, not fighting with the program, by simply bringing the programs back from an archive CD/DVD/TAPE or even better, simply make a copy of the directory where your programs are stored, then all you need to do is change 2 search paths in Pcdmis itself and you are ready to go again in the older version with good programs / probes.

Directory structure is very important to the ease that you can do this. First of all, do NOT store the programs in the Pcdmis install directory. Make a seperate directory right on the main partition of the hard drive (C:\PCD-PROGS for example). Second, keep the programs seperate in there by making sub-directories based on either a part number or a job number or part name (C:\PCD-PROGS\ROOF-RAIL or PN324-345-123). You can also make a subdirectory there for the probe files (C:\PCD-PROGS\PROBES) and store all of them there. Then, when you want to try a new version, simply copy the entire PCD-PROGS directory and re-name it (PCD-PROGS-V37mr3). Then, if you have to go back, you simply change the search paths in Pcdmis from PCD-PROGS to PCD-PROGS-V37mr3 and you are ready to go and are up and running again in a matter of a minute or so. Just remember, those same paths will be the default for ALL versions of Pcdmis from V3.5 MR0 and up.

[Mike N.]

V4.1 (4.0 mr1) is comming soon

hold on for a few more weeks and 4.1 should be out with several fixes (with exception of reporting)

[jjewell]

Well, I have said it before, so I 'll say it again. Newer does not mean better.

Yes they try to address some issues, but in my opinion, there seems to be VERY little testing done before releasing it to the masses.

YOU are the tester, whether you like it or not ? Who was the mastermind behind changing the manner in which the report works (ver4)??? Probably the same guy that thought HYPER-REPORTING was a novel idea, oh ya, they took that capability out, didn't they in version 4.0.

Don't "buy" into this latest and greatest crap. Let B & S figure out how to fix their own mess. I run my business with this software, I wouldn't want another, but my software realease is from 2002, guess what ? It works awesome !

I hope none of you are the same ppl that watch those guys on TV on Sunday and can't wait to rush the phone to give the preachers money, if you are, well, lets leave that alone, shall we ?

My saopbox for the day

[John Riggins]

Mike N: thanks for the news but we can't wait.... the reporting mess is the most vexing problem. When will they fix THAT? I will wait till I can have "Full Report Mode" back the way it used to work.

And Matt: thanks also for your advice. I have been somewhat careful about storage and directory naming; I will be more careful now after this 4.0 fiasco.

[RussL]

You could also search for all .PRG's saved in the past two weeks

[John Riggins]

Searching for the "t" file turned them all up. About 45 in all.

Thanks folks

[Matthew D. Hoedeman]

Hind sight is usually 20/20. I set up this policy of mine WAY BACK in the DOS days of pcdmis, back when if it wasn't VERY logical, it was hard to find everything. And I mean pre-Windoze 3.1 even, when you ran Pcdmis from the old command prompt. Also, back then, there was 8 or 10 files for EACH program, so directory structure was VERY important to file storage. And the file names were very strange, nothing you could really look at and say "Yep, this group of files checks this part". Part of the file name was the sequential number generated by Pcdmis, part from what you called the program, and some letter combinations that Pcdmis used to describe what the file did, but only internally. In fact, I found some archives of those old DOS programs, and here is the list it made for the 'first' program in the directory:

00001262.67A
00001262.67B
00001262.67C
00001262.67D
00001262.67F
00001262.67H
00001262.67M
00001262.67S
00001262.67T

Now, how would you like to figure THAT garbage out? I think (if I remember right) that those files indicate the first program (00001) created in the 27267 sub-directory. The alphabet stuff was Pcdmis extension letters for it's internal use.

So, you can see why I set up the procedure I still use to this day.

[Bill **********]

I wish they would just fix one version just once before SPEWING another mess all over the globe.

You all know whats going to happen don't you? 4.3 Mr 4 will be almost working and 5.0 with all the BIG IDEAS will hit and we'll start all this B&S all over again.

Bill

[why me]

I haven't recieved 4.0 version yet it sound like maybe I need to wait till 4.1 comes out befor updating my software. any advise from any one?