Topic Title

I've held off on sending this, but my present situation and Neil Blanchard's prompt response to my first post encourages me to expose my angst. His simple suggestion is old hat for you teckies; for me it is anathema. When I had a staff, there was always someone around who could take care of things. Now by myself, I flounder more than I walk. Hence my list:

Dcad WISHLIST

It’s still like Christmas eve, reading put-it-together instructions for my childrens’ Santa Claus. Some of us are just not cut out to be semi-mechanics. My wish list :

Wish I didn’t have to read about doing something to an .INI file, or changing some setting that’s not in an active menu,

Wish I didn’t feel like I had to understand “change the BIOS setting for the LPT port” for whatever reason,

Wish I didn’t have to dread the unpredictability and possibility of hardlock problems, or finding a driver and downloading it for something I know nothing about, like I keep seeing in the Forum,

Wish I could find my old templates that I tried to put into a fixed path,

Wish I could set up a backup drive, and a backup procedure other than copying to a CD, (I’m getting ready to try a thumb drive, but I don’t know what I’m getting in to),

Wish I could buy a second monitor and put it beside my present one and have dual-monitors to work on without having to look for someone to install a dual-monitor card, do something to the computer that I don’t understand and that I can’t explain the purpose of,

Wish that I could order Dcad on a station and not have to worry about changing nuances till I ordered a new station.

Wish I didn’t have to read about doing something to an .INI file, or changing some setting that’s not in an active menu,

I agree about the INI editing; but I'm not sure that I understand what you mean about "active menu"?

Wish I didn’t feel like I had to understand “change the BIOS setting for the LPT port” for whatever reason,

This is a vagary of a particular computer -- things mess up sometimes, and this is part of what comes from working on a computer. I'm pretty sure that DataCAD has no part in causing it, either.

Wish I didn’t have to dread the unpredictability and possibility of hardlock problems, or finding a driver and downloading it for something I know nothing about, like I keep seeing in the Forum,

There is only one situation that requires that you download the new hardlock driver: when you install DataCAD on a computer with WinXP SP2. It is very predictable! They have recently made this easier by combining the HASP driver and the hardlock driver into one package.

Wish I could find my old templates that I tried to put into a fixed path,

Well, you should try out the Symbol Browser! The templates were fine if you were very careful, but they got out of hand pretty easily. v11's SB has "fixed" this mechanism, so I think you'll enjoy the improvement.

Wish I could set up a backup drive, and a backup procedure other than copying to a CD, (I’m getting ready to try a thumb drive, but I don’t know what I’m getting in to),

You can use Second Copy 2000 to back up to just about anything: external hard drive, new internal HD, a HD on another computer on a network, onto a Zip drive, or onto a flash (aka thumb) drive. Using Second Copy is pretty easy and fairly intuitive.

Wish I could buy a second monitor and put it beside my present one and have dual-monitors to work on without having to look for someone to install a dual-monitor card, do something to the computer that I don’t understand and that I can’t explain the purpose of,

Are we talking about a desktop computer, or a laptop? You don't have to add a dual output video card -- if you have an older PCI video card, that can be installed "beside" your existing card. Windows handles the dual monitor settings pretty well. Why does the technician have to know how you are going to use the dual monitors? I'm unclear about what you are trying to say...

Wish that I could order Dcad on a station and not have to worry about changing nuances till I ordered a new station.

This was the sort of thing that Madura Studios used to do, but this is not a widespread thing anymore. I have built computers for folks, and installed DataCAD (and just about every other important software, too) on it, but most people end up doing this for themselves. I would imagine that the reason usually is cost?

BTW, if you think that installing and setting up v11 is tricky, then I would remind you of how much effort it was to install a DOS version of DataCAD! Believe me, it was a LOT more involved and esoteric! If you had to set up a dual boot with DOS DataCAD and Win 3.1, and mess with the Config.sys and the Autoexec.bat, and run the video driver manually, and then run the DataCAD config program -- nevermind a network!

So, yes it would be great if using a Windows computer was a lot easier and more dependable...but fate intervened and we ended up with MS, instead of Mac!

...Wish I didn’t have to read about doing something to an .INI file, or changing some setting that’s not in an active menu.

Actually you are right. We have already suggested Dave and the Guys of 'bits&bytes' to create a configuration tool, as on a second step dialog, where this 'uncommon' changes could be done. A backup saving feature could help to rescue back, if something excessively 'radical' is done.

Wish I could set up a backup drive, and a backup procedure other than copying to a CD

Indeed V11 already makes available to you this highly secure backup you wish. Please, try it. You can get what you want, with a little effort.

Hope this helps to encourage you to write some more times.
Miguel