Does Vista play nicely with others? (Filemaker)
This post is a continuation of the Blue Ribbon and Vista posting earlier today.
By now, there are two important pieces of information from Extension IT that you need to be aware of. The first one is the April 15 deadline for any computers that you want loaded with WindowsXP. After that date, all computers WILL be loaded with Vista, no exceptions. The other information that's important is that Extension IT is coordinating a "bulk buy" of Filemaker 9 licenses for county use. (For more information, go to Tech News Feb. 26.)
Filemaker 7 and 8 will not run on Vista. Well, technically version 8 will sort of run, if you don't mind that the screen turns black every time you click on something, but let's assume that's not acceptable. Version 8.5 WILL work, IF you have installed a Vista update. Filemaker 9 is fully Vista compatible. The really good news is that it is also fully compatible with Filemaker 7 & 8. What that means is that if you have a Filemaker 7 database, you can open it using Filemaker 9 on one computer, then later open it using Filemaker 7 on another one. The extension at the end of the filename will still be ".fp7" as it was in both Filemaker 7 and 8.
So, why would you need to purchase Filemaker 9 this time? Only if you think you're going to have a Vista computer that will need to run Filemaker, truthfully. But remember, Vista is not going away. Not just this year's computers, but all computers from now on, will have Vista installed on them. So plan ahead. The opportunity that Mike Mauton is coordinating for you is a good one--purchasing Filemaker individually is more expensive.
Other tidbits--the state fair entry system will continue to be "runtime", which means that you don't have to have ANY Filemaker to open it. The judges database, however, will only be available in ".fp7", so if you never upgraded to version 7 or 8, now is a good time to buy a license for version 9 so that you can use that database. I'm kind of assuming the same things are true about the staff directory and the pesticide directory, but it's just a guess.
Interested in learning more about how to use Filemaker? I'm tentatively planning that I'll offer some beginner and intermediate workshops next fall. I want to have time to work with my own version 9, and see whether there are new features that I should add to the workshop. I'll send out more information about those workshops as soon as I have a definite time frame.
If you have questions about Filemaker and Vista, please feel free to post a comment to the blog! If you have specific questions about Vista only, you're going to be better off talking to somebody at Extension IT!!