Microsoft has officially retired Windows 2000, XP and NT®. We cannot provide technical support for these operating systems and strongly encourage all users to upgrade to currently supported versions of Windows for clients and server (Versions 7, 8 and Server 2008 as of this writing.) None of these operating systems are being patched and are therefore highly vulnerable to any number of security threats.

We recognise that some customers are determined to continue to use older versions of Windows (especially XP.) There is no technical reason that SAFE will not run on these machines, but again: caveat emptor! The security vulnerabilities are, in our opinion, just not worth any short term savings in not upgrading.

Here are some notes on using Simple Accounting with these older OSs. This in no why implies an endorsement or any promise of service. It’s just information. And to make matters worse, it may not be currently accurate as we are in no way upgrading links to the information below. For example, if Microsoft kills some of these links, we’re not going to bother finding new ones. Use at your own risk!

1. It is very important that you ensure that you have applied all the current service packs from Microsoft. Microsoft maintains a free download site at: http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/default.htm. If you are not familiar with applying service packs, contact your hardware and software vendor to do it for you.
2. Do not install SimpleAccounting so that clients run Simple Accounting from a root drive. In other words, you should create a folder structure like this on your server:

OurServerAccountingSimple

Then, map your clients to a drive (X:) pointing to OurServerAccounting. That way, the client’s drop-down-list target will read something like:

X:SIMPLESAFE.EXE

To clarify, here is how not to do it. This is bad. Don’t do it like this. Do it like the example in the previous paragraph!

Client’s X: = OurServerAccountingSimple

So that the client’s shortcut target reads something like:

X:SAFE.EXE  WRONG!!!  

NT Server has a problem implementing record locking on shared databases (like Simple Accounting’s TPS system) when the file is being accessed at the root level of a logical drive. Errors in file and record locking can occur where two workstations can be allowed to lock the same file at the same time! Moving the path of the files one level below the root corrects the problem..

1. You must make certain that Opportunistic Locking is disabled. Normally, this is the default setting in Windows 2000 Server. But if you are running Simple Accounting on an NT Server, you should read the topic Disabling Opportunistic Record Locking.
Last Revision: 04.10.2014