Is Word98 likely to work in classic mode in OS X 10.4.3?

[Gary Goldberg]

I'm considering buying a MacMini and wonder if my Word98 program is likely
to work without major glitches in Classic mode. Do I have to install
the program from CD or can I copy all the files over from my present computer
(which runs OS 9.1)?

 

[Anybody]

I'm considering buying a MacMini and wonder if my Word98 program is likely
to work without major glitches in Classic mode. Do I have to install
the program from CD or can I copy all the files over from my present computer
(which runs OS 9.1)?

Some people will tell you it works fine, but from what I've experienced
it's simply one badly written application running under a badly made
hack Apple likes to call "Classic" - and two wrongs definitely do not
make a right. :-(

My version of Office 98 simply seems to work OK for a while, then
completely crashes out of Classic for no reason, and then it seems to
get worse and worse until you can't open the Word application or any
files because it simply crashes instantly.

Office 2001 seems to suffer the same problems too.

*BUT* you can try it with no problem and just trash the folder when it
doesn't work. It's probably best to reinstall it from the original CD
and install all the updaters, just in case the files on the other Mac
are corrupted.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Gary:

If you do a fresh install of Word 98 in Classic should run just fine.

If you copy the files from your old computer, expect trouble.

You can, of course, copy all of your documents across, but do a clean
install of Word first, and run the application at least once so that it
creates fresh copies of all of its preference files on the new machine.

Then copy your documents across and they should all be fine.

The preference files contain multiple references to local machine resources:
if you copy them between machines, all hell breaks loose.

I would install a copy of Word 2004 as soon as you can: OS 10.4 makes use of
Unicode, and Word 2004 is the first version of Word to properly enable this.

Cheers

I'm considering buying a MacMini and wonder if my Word98 program is likely
to work without major glitches in Classic mode. Do I have to install
the program from CD or can I copy all the files over from my present computer
(which runs OS 9.1)?

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Klaus Kamppeter]

Some people will tell you it works fine, but from what I've experienced
it's simply one badly written application

I used it quite a time and quite a lot, and it hasn't been such a bad
experience, besides version 5.1, that has been a pretty good one for its
time. Certainly, quite a bit of compatibility problemas between Mac and
Windows versions, with needs of workarounds and problems with inserted
grafics and objects, that worked only using certain formats. Some file
curruption issue too. One detail that is better in 98 than in 2004 is
that long dashes keep with the text at the end or beginning of lines. In
spanish writing m or n dashes are used as they were parentesis -for a
comment in the sentence-, and I think they look much better than
parentesis.

bye