. EasyGrapher

WINDOWS VISTA/7/8/10
With Windows Vista, and Windows 7 through 10, Microsoft made many changes aiming to make Windows more secure. While the newer versions may be more secure, the changes have created some problems for software that ran just fine in previous versions of Windows.

Originally we thought that the problems running on Windows Vista, and subsequently versions of Windows, could be solved by revising the program installation. Unfortunately, that is not true. It will take some some significant program changes for our programs to run "properly" under the newer versions.

In the meantime, the short answer is that EasyGrapher programs must be run with administrator rights, otherwise called "as administrator."

While we may have found a problem installing fonts on Windows Vista Business in early testing, this has not been duplicated in subsequent tests with Windows Vista Home Premium, which is the Vista version most of our customers may still be using. It may be that this is a problem that is peculiar to Vista Business or it may have been a problem with the particular computer we had for testing. We have had no problems installing on Windows 7 and later.

For now, we do not think it is necessary to change our installation, which means older versions of our programs can be installed successfully. If you have a problem installing, certainly let us know.

A large part of the new Vista/7/8/10 security is the User Account Control. This is a "watch dog" of sorts that tries to make sure that you really want to perform certain actions that have the possibility of making unapproved changes to your PC. Depending on how you use your computer, you may see many windows pop up from the UAC asking permission to continue the action you requested. This is not normally something of concern if the warning appears because of an action you initiated.

Some software publishers suggest that the UAC be deactivated. We do not think this is necessary for EasyGrapher programs at this time.

How to install and run EasyGrapher programs under Windows Vista and later versions

Installing EasyGrapher programs is done the same as with other Windows versions.

After installing, you must make the program run with administrator rights. To do this:

  • right-click on the program icon on the desktop; a menu will appear.
  • choose Properties; a window will open.
  • click on the Compatibility tab.
  • click the checkbox labeled Run this program as administrator.
  • click OK.

Run the program as usual. Before you see the splash screen, you will see a window from the User Account Control (part of the new security) asking whether to continue to run the program. Click Continue and the program will start up.

On the Compatibility tab you will see an option to run the program as though it were running on Windows XP or other previous Windows versions. So far we have not found any difference in how our programs run if this option is set.

Microsoft also decided not to include the Windows Help program with more recent versions of Windows that our help files need. We have not moved to the "newer" versions of Windows Help for the simple reason that we did not like it as much as the older version. Now we will be forced to change, but in the meantime you can download the program to make  our help files work under later Windows versions here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917607

Microsoft will not let us include it with our installation, or we would.