I have been a DataEase user since 1982, when it was called DataMaster, and am directly responsible for at least 9 other businesses purchasing the application through me. 

I have been retired for over 20 years and now use my DE application only for me to manage my investments, updating my current database regularly and deleting data for those sold. I have not needed to go into developer mode to change applications for more than 10 years. I bought a new PC last April and a new laptop in January, installed Dataease without problem, and updated my data successfully on December 31st. I used the application without difficulty during January.

Over this last weekend, I tried to update the data. I have been trying to log in to the application several times on both machines, but have been unable to do so. DataEase opens and shows the application list. As soon as I click the application (it is now the only one in the list), it "hangs" on the next page after I enter the username and won't accept the password. 

I then had a brainwave and tried again on my old laptop, which hadn't been used since January. It has not had any updates since then, and I was going to wipe all my data on it and do a factory reset of the HD this Easter weekend. Fortunately, I didn't do this earlier as I have managed to get into my DataEase application a few times since Sunday, but this has been intermittent.

Can someone please explain to me what has happened? I have noted that there has been some Forum activity about a similar problem with a later version of DataEase, and solutions have been offered. Can I have the same, please?

Long time since anyone around here has started DataEase 7(2) sow as a little weird to try it, and it was hanging for quite a while (compared to LE9/DE9) before starting up.

If memory doesn't fail me, DE7 do a big NETBIOS search to find other DE users before opening up an app and that way of looking up network user is obsolete so it fails before it open the app (this was removed early on in DE8). 

There is nothing that has happend with DE7 but obviously it will get more and more obsolete as times pass. Possibly MS have done something that DE7 doesn't agree with.

You can try to re-install it to see if it helps as MS do a lot of deleting and it might also be an update to your antivirus software that block some files.

Download below.

https://www.dataease.com/static/files/DataEase-7.2...

Thank you for your prompt reply.

I had considered all the ideas you suggested before sending in my query. However, my version of Dataease was a slightly earlier version than the one you sent the link to, so I uninstalled my version, ran an app that wiped all vestiges, and then used the link you sent to install the later version. This worked, and I was able to open my application. I spent as much time as I could copying data into Word and Excel files last night, just in case I lost access again. I also closed and reopened DataEase three times, without any problem. 

I tried to open Dataease again this morning, without success. I repeated what I did yesterday, again without success this time. However, I read later this morning that last Friday's and Tuesday's MS Windows 11 updates were flawed, causing some applications to fail to open. As instructed, I updated Windows with yesterday's W11 update, then repeated yesterday's reinstallation of Dataease. Again, it has failed. It hangs when I get to the username and password entry. I tried to open Club Paradease from the samples, with the same outcome.

I have checked that the database hasn't moved:

As you can see, the relevant files were last used at 23.10 last night. What I can do this morning is create a new application that opens in Designer mode (see attached file). 

So, is there anything else I can do? Thankfully, I can now view all my historical data, but I can't update it. 

Our guess is that your virus software has blocked some of the files in DataEase 7.

Check your virus software/firewall etc. 

In Windows 11 there is also a Smart App Control which is very invasive. It is there to protect yourself from yourself.

Its a DNA feature in WIndows 11 and can only be enabled from a clean install of WIndows 11 and if switched off it can never be enabled again as your OS then already might be "infected". 

I don't think this is Smart App Control but rather your anti-virus that is "hyper active".

As long as you have your app you don't loose anything. 

Download LE9 from here, you should be able to migrate the app quite easily and see if you get the same problem.

You get 30 days trial so can use it to see what the problem is.

Hi All! https://www.dataease.com/static/files/DataEase-7.2.3.947.exe  What serial # needed to test ? Glory to DataEase Team!

There  is no trial or testing serial for 7.2. Its just a legacy download.

Thx a lot for Your reply! 

Thank you for your suggestions. I tried all of them, except trialling DataEase 9x, without success. At this stage of my later years of age, I did not want to move to a new platform. 

However, I did learn that MS had fouled up their updates yet again last Friday. My problem only started after I accessed DE7 following that update, and it continued after the first "emergency update" released by MS on Tuesday, which I had installed. When I learnt of another "emergency update" on Thursday, I waited until I could install this and then once that was completed, I tried to open my DE program again - and it worked the first time".

Since then, during the following 36 hours, I have rebooted my PC a couple of times and opened my DE7 files again, without a problem.

The sloppiness of Microsoft has yet again wasted a lot of my time - and, of course, those of you on this Forum also. Sorry.

don’t worry … simply keep in mind and take that story about CP/M and IBM and OS for the first IBM PC  into account… Glory to DataEase team nevertheless ! 

Don't worry about us, you can't really waist the time here as all information about problem and possible problems is good to know.

We are handling a big old codebase ourselves and sometimes you can wonder how it can work at all with so many possibilities of things going wrong.

The current team has been in charge now for well over a decade and now we are very comfortable with the code, it quirks etc. but we can also see how different teams have had the same ideas without knowing the code base well enough to know what they want to "solve" has already been "solved" by another team in the past. 

There is also a lot of examples where "improvements" has turned out to be the opposite because the developers didn't know enuogh about the history and why things were the way they were.

WIth that in mind we can imagine how it works over at Microsoft too and that new teams come in with "great" ideas and then end up messing with legacy functionality and introducing "hypes" that is not really improvements at all.

We have done all of that ourselves ;-)

Thanks. You wrote: "......................and take that story about CP/M and IBM and OS for the first IBM PC".

I remember those days well. I had a PC built for my business around 1998, and limited database software was written for me in CP/M. My brother worked for IBM at the time and, among his duties, he had to install prototype PCs running IBM DOS in small businesses for testing. I received one around 2000 and wrote a subsequent report about how I found it, given the still-limited software. That's around the time I purchased DataMaster. Later on, I gave an illustrated talk to around 30 small business owners at Datamaster's HQ in Ilfordabout my experience and demonstrated how to use a database.

Around 1981, I also purchased a program from Salt Lake City that was unknown here, called a spreadsheet. It was sold to me by the writer/owner Jim Button, who named it "PC-Calc". He was bought out by a company that developed it as "Lotus-123", and later on (I believe) it formed the basis for MS's Excel. 

Thank You very much too! To be short we’ve lived in Golden Epoch. Now it is stagnation everywhere! But I am confident that next DataEase will give us a pleasure we had from the very beginning … Glory to DataEase ! ps. But 7.2 …how did you manage it without license key nevertheless .. or that was anybody else in the case 

"...........................................But 7.2 …how did you manage it without license key?"

I have always had license keys, each time I upgraded from the first DataMaster, through the first Windows versions up to 7.2. 

“01/04/26 15:09:11

Re:Re:DataEase access

There is no trial or testing serial for 7.2. Its just a legacy download.

...

Product: DataEase for Windows 7.x

Written by: DataEase “ I’ve downloaded that 7.2 legacy download nevertheless and … for sure the absence of the license key stopped me … may be is a bit little chance to continue this very important task here in Ukraine. Thank You sincerely for You reply …

This is just a version available for people that bought it back in the day and its not retailed anymore. There is nothing this version do better than LE9 or DE8.5. 

Dataease 7 was mostly a disappointment to users even though 7.2 rounded off that version quite well with a much more stable and usable version that the catatrophical versions 7.0 and 7.1 that led to the split up of the development team and the now defunct FFenics which in everything but the name was a 7.1.5.

thx for Your reply . For sure we need “something” unknown … here due to the war … hard to unlock to be short …

??

It is hard to hack old apps … so You have evmove.com , Evdat* even … 

Thank you for your message. I appreciate that English may not be your first language. However, I am sorry but I don't understand your last two messages.

To confirm: my DataEase 7.2 has been working normally since I updated the error-prone update to Windows 11, without any changes to the DataEase software for the last 14 years.