English Chess Forum

I received the following message today:

Please note that I will probably NOT be able to do the grading for the X League next season.
This is because the ECF software I used to use does not work on my current computer.

I have attempted to discover more detail other than "does not work" but failed.

Is this a known issue?

Possibly the grader has migrated to an Apple computer: would that create a problem?

Possibly the grader has migrated to Windows 8: would that create a problem?

I have had a message to confirm that "League" does not function with Windows 8.

It doesn’t work under anything later than Vista.

I thought they had various backwards compatability methods built in?

MartinCarpenter wrote:I thought they had various backwards compatibility methods built in?

It's a standard Windows feature that you can set Compatibility modes all the way back to Windows 95. I expect there are numerous ways to do this, but right-clicking on the desktop icon and selecting Properties and then Compatibility is one approach. Setting "Run as Administrator" sometimes has to be tweaked with older programs.

Also

Some keep a Vista or XP machine purely for grading.

It transpires that the "League" application does not function with Windows 7 or later.

I was puzzled by what difference there was with 8 that could have caused a new problem.

The original code author has "moved on".

7 definitely has an option to run things in backwards compataiblity modes, although such things don't always work. Sadly keeping code running well over time has effort and cost attached, which can quite easily end up orphaning this sort of application

I suspect the code needs to be ported to something more modern.

I am confident it is all in hand.

Sounds a tad silly. Windows 7 Pro even gives you any number of full XP emulation windows within 7, never mind the various compatibility modes, all you need is memory. Software should be updated for modern operating systems as a matter of policy, of course, but it is very unlikely that software written for XP cannot be run under 7, given a little love and attention.

I am able to use the grading program on both my Windows 7 Desktop or my Windows 8 laptop. I keep everything in a folder called "League" including results.exe and several database files on a USB stick so I can switch between computers without losing any data. All I've had to do to get it to work is to download a more recent Borland Database Engine.

http://en.kioskea.net/download/download ... ase-engine

The version I get from this page is in French but it works just the same.