Running PCLaw 7 under Windows 7

I recently had someone call me who had PCLaw 7 and had bought a new Windows 7 64 bit PC. They wanted to run PCLaw 7 under Windows 7. Not supported, and as usual LexisNexis wanted an arm and a leg to upgrade and pay the punitive reinstatement fees. Could it be done anyway?

Turns out, it can.  There are a couple of tricks. 

As always with Windows 7, I recommend turning off the User Access Controls – really annoying and the utility is marginal. This will make it a lot easier to install and customize programs.

First of all, old Windows Help files will not run under Windows 7. So you have to download winhlp32.exe from the Microsoft site. You can find instructions here.

If you don’t do this you will get really annoying messages that the help file cannot be opened. The messages won’t go away and you have to manually dismiss the program, so do this first.

We copied the old data to an external hard drive, reinstalled the program on the Windows 7 and then linked up to the data. When you install the program, you want to right-click on the autorun or setup file and select Compatibility.  Set the executable to run as if it were Windows XP SP3, disable the fancy screen fonts for Windows 7, and set the program to run with Administrative rights. Do this to the PCLaw executable as well.

With those two things done, everything went very well. PCLaw is up and running under Windows 7.

The same approach may work for other legacy programs as well. As usual, your mileage may vary.

Comments

[John Heckman]

I don't have a solution for you, but two possibilities I can think of are (1) run in compatibility mode, and (2) experiment a bit with what constitutes the "system folder." If you are running 64 bit Windows 7, it might be in the Program Files folder as opposed to the Program Files (x86) folder.

More generally, at some point older versions of products are simply going to stop functioning. So your two options are (1) bit the bullet and pay the big bucks for the upgrade, or (2) limp along for a while and in the meantime investigate web-based billing products. Most of them give you a 30 day trial, so you can enter, say, one client and track it for 30 days to see whether it meets your needs.

[Bill]

I am running PCLaw 7.63f on Windows 7, works fine EXCEPT the connection to Outlook 2003. I can't save e-mails to a client matter, and the PCLaw calendar entries do not transfer to Outlook. I also receive an error message that "PLSHARED.dll" file must be in the system folder. It is in the System32 folder (where it was when I ran PCLaw on Win XP), I don't know if this is THE problem but there are some bugs in my system even though the time/billing is working (for now). I fear spending the big bucks to PCLaw for the current upgrade and AMP! Any suggestions???

Thanks.

[Richard F. Sands]

I have gone through the article and found interesting information helped me in getting the best answer that I am looking for.

[Oliver]

Hi, the uninstall IE 9 fix worked for me with PCLaw v7.63f, although randomly we have encountered a different issue, PCLaw logs in ok but at the home screen, there is simply black, nothing, no buttons etc. The top menu is there. I imagine PCLaw uses IE to render the home screen buttons etc and windows perhaps did an update to IE8 that subtly effected it in someway? Any ideas?

[Kamran Parandian]

Jonathan, you are a lifesaver. I was using PClaw fine and one day it stopped working. I tried everything from re-installing to changing all sorts of settings but nothing worked. Then I came across your post and viola it fixed the problem after I uninstalled IE9. Much gratitude.

[Jonathan Warshay]

OK, I figured out the crash thing, thanks to an Urgent PCLaw Tech Bulletin that stated versions of PCLaw before version 10 with service pack 5 are not compatible with IE9. I uninstalled IE9 and no more crashing. It apparently is fine with IE8.

[Mark Friedman]

I note you gave instructions to use PCLaw V. 7 on Windows 7. How about 6.60? Thanks.

[Jonathan Warshay]

OK, fixed the stackhash crash by disabling Data Execution Protection for PCLAW32.EXE.

It asks me every time to try to register MSXML4.dll (which I do, but it asks me the next time).

Now I get this appcrash:
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: PCLAW32.EXE
Application Version: 20.5.12.1
Application Timestamp: 43946391
Fault Module Name: mshtml.dll
Fault Module Version: 9.0.7930.16421
Fault Module Timestamp: 4ccf4897
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0032fdf5
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 2e13
Additional Information 2: 2e13184aefc5189f197a50aacec68dc0
Additional Information 3: 7c17
Additional Information 4: 7c173c75e62e36ee8d1b84119c2f4d4a

[Jonathan Warshay]

I get an error after I enter the firm info:

Application Name: PCLAW32.EXE
Application Version: 20.5.12.1
Application Timestamp: 43946391
Fault Module Name: StackHash_c2f7
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 00000000
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: ec33c965
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: c2f7
Additional Information 2: c2f75f8299471542bbd6bce21e8ee1bf
Additional Information 3: 9dd5
Additional Information 4: 9dd554a1a5762345f1cd94e81643c17e

[Bev S]

Will there be any problems with having Windows XP Pro and Windows 7 computers both accessing the PCLaw 7 data? We currently have PCLaw 7 data on a Windows 2003 server with all XP Pro user computers, but will be replacing some computers in the near future with Windows 7 computers. I can't forsee a problem, but appreciate any confirmation that you can provide.