(yes, it runs some ancient un-upgradeable hardware/software, or DID)

I have several old disc-based magazine archives that rely on proprietary software that's incompatible with the current version of Windows.

PollyPaperclip: what are you do, keep a pile of ancient laptops around for this purpose?

I don't, but I've thought of getting one.

I have complete runs (up to publication date) of Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and National Geographic that I'd like to have back.

National Geographic kinda-sorta works, but the other two are DOA.

These are on CD ROM? What do they need, Windows 3.1 or 95 or what?

You can't even extract the image files for the pages. They use some kinda proprietary nonsense that's all bound up in the browser.

Yea, CD and DVD ROMs. They worked fine up through and including Windows 10 (I think).

No, I mean the one before 10.

10's what killed them.

I've scoured the web for solutions and none are to be had unless you're a heavy-duty hacker.

The worst thing: The problem seems to be some sort of dating convention that doesn't get along with Windows 10.

How stupid.

The New Yorker situation is intriguing - I may have a look at that and if I find an easy(ish) solution, I'll leave it under a rock at a rest stop on I-90. Or let you know.

I appreciate that! But it may be simpler to spend a hundred bucks on an old laptop lol

PollyPaperclip: fwiw I went and got myself the Complete New Yorker (thru 2005) disc set and installed it on this Win10 machine - no problems so far, it seems to work fine. Tho' agreed a pain in the arse with the disc swapping.

It may be that if you uninstall and re-install from scratch it will straighten itself out (as it has to install NET 1.1 in the process)

Hmmmmm... I have tried this several times and it hasn't worked. I've also seen much wailing and gnashing of teeth from others who have the same problem.

HOWEVER

It ran fine on my Win 10 machine until it ran its first major update. That's what killed it.

First thing I dug up Margret Atwood's Wilderness Tips as I wanted to see if I remembered this line correctly (close!) *The question at this age is what kind of dog you will shortly resemble. She will be a beagle, Prue a terrier..." I remember thinking at the time: only Margret Atwood could get away this THIS

But if it's working for you they did a few years of updates that you may be able to score on eBay.

Ha!

hmmm, I'm 100% up to date with Win10... maybe you should put on a few MORE updates!

btw: $6.75 inclusive of tax and shipping from Thriftbooks if anyone else is interested. A cheap experiment!

If you want the updates, just look for the 2008 one. It's the last one they did and it's inclusive of all previous updates.

Of course, the update may end your good-luck streak.

OR

Maybe the latest Windows updates are WHY it's working.

I gave up. I haven't tried recently.

But I will say, the content is obviously worth the low cost at resale.

Unfortunately, the index is notoriously bad. You wanna know why?

desperately

Apparently, even when this was published, The New Yorker index was on paper index cards.

And that's what they used to populate the software search engine.

It's so bad that I created my own index of silent-film reviews in Excel.

WHICH I CAN'T EVEN USE.

because why??

it seems weird that the archive doesn't give titles for whatever its search function turns up

You'd think they would've just OCR'd it.

I mean, it's not like that could've been automated, ya know?

The Rolling Stone set is better but still has issues.

It seems like searchability is the common problem of most of these.

They also did the first two decades of Playboy. I bet the text search is fine on those.

'just for the articles' after all

You can also get National Lampoon, Mad, and a number of Marvel Comics runs.

Those titles did it right by not developing their own clunky, proprietary browsers. And you know what? They still work just fine.

Okay, so it does attempt to install .Net 1.1 but it stalled. It never threw an error message or anything, it just stopped. Is there another way to install .Net?

WAIT! IT'S DOING IT!

“Yap yap!”

OMG IT WORKS AGAIN!

This is the best $6.75 Coyote ever spent!

Thank you!

See the index card reproduced verbatim in the bottom of the viewer?

Now I'm afraid to close the program lol

pruememo: terrier ain’t so bad!

Rolling Stone works again, too! But it requires a patch from the Wayback Machine. I recommend the Rolling Stone set fer sher.

I saw that wayback patch, figured your googling had turned that up. Well, I’m glad I somehow triggered a computer miracle!

I had not realized those synopses represented the original index cards… antique!

Another one I will have to look up from the early 90s as a series they ran about this artist that made radioactive sculptures out of orange fiesta ware. That one stuck with me!

Oh, that sounds batshit crazy and interesting.

Was the artist coincidentally Pripyat's foremost collector of Fiesta Ware?

BTW, National Geographic is ALSO working again, but you have to set your date back to 2010 during installation.

I wonder if there's an archive of Computer Shopper?

A rather sparse one, yes: Computer Shopper Magazine : Free Texts : Free Downlo...