I'm a reporter with Wired News. I'm working on a story about
Microsoft's Word 5.1. I'm looking for anyone who still uses it,
especially on new hardware: (e-mail address removed)
My wife still uses Micro$oft 'Word 5.1a' even though she
also has 'Office 2004' on her Mac at work. At home we're
stuck with an old 6400 L2/G3 which only boots into 9.1.
Basically, she learned 5, and when 6 came out it was so
horrendous that no one would use it voluntarily. So, she just
kept using 5.1a right through Office 98. She complained ( of v.
98) that "all of the key commands were different, and the menus
were so complicated she couldn't find anything."
I'm sure there is a lot of truth in this, as I find the
latest version of Office 2004 much more intuitive than v.98 or
v. X. Maybe it's just me. I am trying to get her to use (more
and more) 'Office 2004' over v. 5.1a; of course, we'll need a
new Mac at home before that happens entirely. The "Last
Remaining Reason ®" for using classic at all is her old label
making program 'MacEnvelope' from Synex.
When I showed her how easy it was to make Avery ® labels in
'Word 2004' she was impressed. Any how, I digress.
I have installed M$ 'Word 5.1a' on my wife's G4 867. It
works well and opens remarkably quickly. However , I
did not install it from the disks. Word 5 is self-contained
and does not add a pile of extensions like later versions do.
The best way to install Word 5 is to simply copy an entire
working folder to the new Mac, as I did. This way you get your
Updates and Custom dictionary all in one easy step.
Many people indicate problems installing onto partitions
larger than 2.0 Gb, although one user got it onto a 2.1 Gb
disk. The old installer used compresed files on a number of
floppies to hold a program that was only about 7 Mb in size,
and it seems very fussy about installations.
It may be necessary to actually do a clean Minimum Install
of a Mac OS onto a small partition, either on a HDD or a large
removeable drive (like a 250 or 750 Mb ZIP,) and then install
Word 5 onto _that_. The Word 5 folder may then be moved or
copied.
If you must install from the installers, these tips come
from an _old_ info file at:
(e-mail address removed) (University of Arkansas)
1. Insert MS Word Installer disk into disk drive.
2. Open floppy disk and click once on Installer icon to
highlight it.
3. Under File on the Menu bar, select Get Info.
4. Raise the Preferred size number to 800.
5. Close window.
6. If you've already tried to install Word 5.1, look for the
the following files in your System Folder and trash them if
they exist:
o In Preferences folder - Embedding Preferences
o In Fonts folder - Mtext font
o In Extensions folder - MTExt file
7. Open Control Panels and double-click on the Memory icon.
8. Turn both Virtual Memory and Modern Memory Manager OFF.
9. Close windows.
10. Re-start computer with extensions off by holding down the
shift key.
11. Install the MS Word software as normal.
12. After installing MS Word, restart your computer holding
down the Option and Command Keys until you get the message
asking if you want to rebuild your desktop. Click on OK.
13. Go back into Control Panels, open the Memory icon, and
turn VirtualMemory and Modern Memory Manager back on.
Of course, this info is probably long out of date. You may
also have problem with the "personalization" of the installer
disk if it is already registered to the previous owner.
I did however, manage to get my own name onto my old copy
of Word 5 (left over from work). It required a pristine copy
of Disk1, the Installer, which I borrowed from someone else at
work.
[No, this is not a pirated copy. We ended up with the disks
when the lab closed down. I just wanted to update the
ownership.]
You make copies of the Unregistered #1 floppy, and
personalize _them_, rather than the Original. In addition, I
have disk images of the floppies on both Zip and CD-R, so I
can make more. (I really caught it once when I accidentally,
uh, "lost" my wife's copy of Word 5.)
There is a shareware program (from 1995) called
"PersonalizeWord 1.0" which, in its description states: that
it "lets you re-enter the name and organization fields that
show up in the window discplayed during Microsoft Word's
startup." Easy to use and fast. Author is anonymous, but it is
available on some of the Mac hacker sites on the web in a .sit
version. See:
<
http://www.parallaxresearch.com/files/macos/Cracking/>
If a standard installation just does not work, you can
expand (tediously) each folder on each floppy and reassemble a
working Word 5 folder. There are some M$ updates to Word 5 that
allow it to open later (Word 98, &c.) documents.
It is probably best to make disk images of your floppies and
save them to various places (e.g.: Zip drive, CD-R, another
HDD, &c.) Mounted disk images of floppies install just as well,
the images can all be mounted at the same time, and it's much
faster.
If you _do_ manage to get Word 5 installed, it's even better
to keep archived copies of the complete expanded folder (it's
only about 7 Mb) in case you need to reinstall. With the
massive size and low cost of Disks these days, there is no
reason to have the program compressed onto 5 or 6 little
floppies.
I did try fooling around with the installation of M$
'Word 5.1a' and I discovered certain things:
1) It will install on a blank 100Mb Zip disk. As there is no
System Folder, it creates one, which contains only an
'Extensions' folder containing only a 'Microsoft' folder
containing only an alias of the 'MicrosoftGraph' application.
This (the M$ folder) can be moved to your 'Extensions' folder.
2) If you make DiskImages or ShrinkWraps of your Floppies, be
sure to write them as _unlocked_, i.e., "Read/Write".
Otherwise, the 'Installer' disk #1 will not function properly.
If all the disk images are mounted at the same time,
installation will go very quickly.
(If for some reason you have a locked disk or DiskImage,
drag/copy the contents to a new folder and make a new
'Read/Write' DiskImage from that.)
3) You may also find that a font suitcase: 'MT Extra' has been
installed into your 'Fonts' folder. This is for the 'Equation
Editor,' IIRC. A copy of these fonts should be saved to your
Word 5 application backup folder(s).
4) Using the 'Word 5' Installer floppies is almost more trouble
than it's worth. You may have to do it _once_, but after that,
just restore the full folder from an already installed backup
copy (remembering the Font, and the Extension.)
I hope this helps. It would be nice if Micro$oft would release
a pure cocoa version of an updated 'Word 5', say 'Word X5',
that was better and more useful than 'TextEdit' but not as
complicated as the full 'Office' or 'Word.' I wonder how many
copies they could sell for the same price as, say,
'GraphicConverter' -- $30? I also wonder how it would cut into
sales of the $149 'Student/Teacher' edition of 'Office'?
