[DewD]

I'm about to upgrade my older PowerMac 6300 Performa from OS 7.6.1 to OS 8.5 and possibly 8.6. I am concerned about my prime software being rendered obsolete. Backwards compatibility is my chief concern...I can't afford to upgrade a mountain of software. Can anyone tell me if Quark 3.32 , Photoshop 3.05, Global Village GlobalFax 2.5P, Freehand 8.1 and Illustrator 7.01, ClarisWorks 4.0v4, Norton Utilities 3.5 , UMAX VistaScan 2.4 (important) , and Polaroid SprintScan 2.7 plug-in (very important!) software will be compatible with 8.5 ? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

DewD

[Keda]

I can speak for Adobe stuff for sure-no problems.

I have some older Macs(68k) I networked them to my G3 w/8.6 and ran most of the sw that was on them. Here and there I found problems, but I think youll Be fine.

I see you like to stay current

I can't answer your specifics, but I am running 8.6 on my Performa 6400/200 and it is working fine. My problem is that my 11 year old son wants to download MP3 music and I want to listen to Internet radio. Some of the sites require RealPlayer to operate succesfully. I have been able to download v5.0, but the sites give me error messages saying that I have an outdated version. When try to install the Mac G2 from the RealPlayer site I get an Error Of Type -199. Que passa, any-one? Is my poor little 603e not up to it? Are any of the G3 upgrade cards worth it? Or should I just save the sheckels and go for a new Performa, sorry, I meant to say iMac. tv.

I am also running P6300CD and have upgraded to OS 8.6 with no problems with VistaScan or C/W 4.0. I am also running Netscape 4.7 and Adobe Photodeluxe 1.1. I do have 64 Mb of physical RAM and that is all my machine will hold but is usually enuf unless I have too many apps open.

My initial experience with 8.6 was that was a little bit of pain at first, but once you�ve got it going it is fantastic. I think it needs a little more maintenance that 7.6.1 but it�s worth it. Good utilities are a must. May I make a suggestion. Why don�t you add an external HD and or partition and run two OS�s. Speaking from experience this is the best route. I would try to get an 8.6 disk first. You can upgrade to 8.5.1 and 8.6 for free, but its more of hassle (and I do recommend that you do this) but going to 8.6 right away would be easier. If you run into a situation where you need to do a clean install of the OS you will be much happier doing it from an OS 8.6 disk than having to do 8.5 and or 8.5.1 and then 8.6. After things seem to be right add your programs one at a time each day or two. You will have something to fall back on if problems arrise or if something needs to be upgraded. I can see some of your software are free downloadable upgrades. Norton Utilities is a negative. I think you can still get an OEM version 4 ($15.00 at OWC) and then download the upgrades to 4.03. Forget that, you�ll want to format you hard drives to HFS+ and I remember having problems with version 4.03 with 8.6 ----Get TechTool Pro 2.5.3. Check with the vender websites on the other programs that you are concerned with.
good luck
Mike
to TerryV----I think I put RealPlayer G2 on my Starmax 180 (603e at 180mz) but it�s been awhile. The kids have got that one now. There is a program Called �wish i were�. It fools the installer, actually it provides a method for a system to identify its
hardware as another hardware type, via the Gestalt "mach" selector. I�ll try to remember to get back to you on this.

I can only speak for ClarisWorks. You'll find the Calendar feature on CW4.0v4 doesn't recognize Y2K regardless of the OS you're running! I had to upgrade to CW5 on my Quadra using OS8.6. I highly recommend OS8.6! It is an elegant OS in both functionality and interface. Good luck!