On 26/07/2012, at 10:29 AM, Diana & Graham Stevens wrote: > Hi everyone > > We have owned Filemaker for years, Version 11 is installed on Graham's iMac > but he has rarely used it. > > Now I would like to use it on my computer, I have stacks of databases in > FoxPro on my G4 and I would like to have the data in a form I can access on > my MacBook Pro (Snow Leopard). > > If we had discs it would be simple to take it off the iMac and then install > on the MacBook Pro but the latest update was a download. How do I go about > transferring it or do I need to buy another copy? I hope not, eventually I > shall have to abandon the apps that use Rosetta which will be expensive to > replace. > > The alternative is to put the data in Excel but that does not have the same > capacity for manipulating the data. > > Best wishes to all from Diana >
There are several issues at play here. First of all, Filemaker is not going to be able to use your FoxPro databases directly. They will have to be converted first, and this can be a huge undertaking. You will need to export to Excel or delimited text files, then import into Filemaker, then there's the whole business of making then useable - layouts, scripts, calculations and relationships all need to be created and tested. Then there's the question of software validation. You will absolutely need the correct installation code which was provided with Graeme's original install. If you don't have the discs this is going to be a problem. Transferring the software is not a big deal: simply copy the Filemaker Pro folder from Graeme's Applications folder to yours either across a network or via a USB drive, or even burning to a CD if there's nothing else. I'm not sure about recent versions, but this used to be a problem with earlier versions of Filemaker since certain components had to be installed to a lower level of the system than the User Domain. I think Filemaker 11 is more self-contained, but I'm not 100% certain, since I have only ever used the installer. If you can't find that installation code you're in trouble before you begin. The only place you'll find it is with the original installation CD. If you can find that then just run the installer on your computer and enter the code when prompted. This is by far the most preferred method of installing Filemaker Pro. I apologise if I have misunderstood certain aspects of your post. If there's any more help I can give I will be glad to do so. PS: an alternative suggestion - if your FoxPro databases are flat files (ie, non-relational) and fairly simple in structure, you might consider exporting to to Excel or text file (as you will have to anyway) and importing into Bento. It's much cheaper, and may provide you with much of the power you want that Excel certainly won't provide. You also won't have the problem of software validation. You can download a trial version of Bento from Filemaker's web site for testing. Peter Hinchliffe Apwin Computer Services FileMaker Pro Solutions Developer Perth, Western Australia Phone (618) 9332 6482 Mob 0403 046 948 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Mac because I prefer it -- Windows because I have to. -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug>
