[Dxbase] DXBase2007 install

[Gary AL9A]

Well, I did it!  After years of procrastination about jumping out of DXB2006 
and into DXB2007 I finally bit the bullet and did the deed.  My angst all 
this time was not over the cost, relatively immaterial, but over the hassle 
of getting things sorted out and going right.  As it turned out I only shot 
myself in the foot twice, but Neal quickly rectified the situation and got 
me back on the straight and narrow in short order.

The biggest stumbling block was in getting around Microsoft and their stupid 
decision of a few years back to drop WinHlp.exe for legacy Help files.  At 
first I couldn't get the darn WinHlp patch to download.  Nothing I did 
worked.  Then I discovered I apparently had already downloaded it some years 
ago, couldn't get it to work then, and promptly forgot about it.  Then the 
problem was getting the MS Fix It program to let the Help macros be 
activated.  I ran it, but for some reason it didn't work.  Neal had me 
download and install the Timeviewer app and he then got onto my machine and 
remotely worked some kind of mumbo jumbo magic that made it finally go. 
Hurray, Help files now work!

Had a couple of other minor glitches along the way - tried to import the 
wrong mdb file, finally found the correct one in the Virtual Store path, had 
to relearn about Styles... to set my screens so they looked normal for me, 
etc.  The import went very well and was delighted to find that my pending 
labels and mailing address files came on board as did my Special Events 
calendar of upcoming contests.  The rig interface works, the CW interface 
works, I get DX spots without a problem, although I haven't tried sending a 
spot yet.  Neal says my custom labels and list reports from 2006 will work 
with 2077 so I am busy copying those over.  So far a couple that I've tried 
are working FB.

Now my only disappointment with 2007, which I knew about before I upgraded, 
is the Previous QSOs window.  My main heartburn with this is that records 
brought up from a Callsign search are in hysterical date order.  If there 
are many records for a given callsign it is a PITA to find a particular 
record date in the list.  In DXB2006 if I started seeing dates getting out 
of sequence I could just compact the mdb file and that restored the correct 
date order, at least for a time being.  With 2007 that doesn't work any 
more.  Guess I'll just have to live with it until Neal gets the new edition 
released.

73,
Gary AL9A