Windows 7 + FrameMaker 11 = BOOM!

Fri Aug 9 14:19:11 PDT 2013

To add to the chorus:  I have been using Windows 7 (64 bit) and FrameMaker 11 for over two years now - that OS should not be a reason for concern per se. So, if you all are getting new systems with fully patched versions of Windows 7 and FrameMaker 11, you should be fine.

And, as others have also mentioned, even though FrameMaker is a 32 bit application, the OS _can_ avoid having to swap processes to disk if you have a 64-bit OS installed and lots of memory. Of course, if you are planning to run 32-bit Windows 7 (why?), having more than 4GB of RAM is useless in that case.

Like other people, I suspect that your crash issues are related to the network access. If some file (a document part in a book, included text file, referenced image file, etc.) is on the network server, you can have problems if the network or remote server is slow in responding in any way.

So, the fix you mention is the right thing. If there is enough space left to copy all the FrameMaker and image, included files for a particular book onto to your local drive, edit, and then replace after the session is done (ideally using a check-in/check-out system to avoid multiple people editing the same file), then this would be the way to proceed.

Z

P.S. By the way, the "29 Megabyte" and "185 Megabyte" drives are _impossibly_ low. Are you sure you did not mean "Gigabyte"? Or something else?

From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Ken Poshedly
Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2013 8:54 AM
To: FrameMaker Users List
Subject: Windows 7 + FrameMaker 11 = BOOM!

Due to the addition of 2 new contract writers and the replacement of the hard drive in an existing terminal in my department, we're now stuck with Windows 7 and FrameMaker 11 on those three platforms for the past month or so.

And it's been nothing but problems ever since, with unpredictable crashes on the desktop computers used by the two contract writers, even though all three FM 11 platforms have all the Adobe patches.

One thing which does seem consistent is that FM11 does not seem to work well with files located on our network server, yet that is really the method here. Symptoms may include _extremely_ long times to open, save and close files and MAY include the abovementioned FrameMaker crashes, though we have not yet confirmed that.

The "fix" is for the contract writers to copy files from our 4-terrabyte network drive onto external hard drives cabled to their terminals and for my coworker to copy files directly onto his computer's internal hard drive; then copy the revised file back into place in its location on the network drive.

The two contract writer desktop computers have ridiculously internal small hard drives. (One is 29 megabytes and the other is 185 megabytes I've been told.)

Me? I'm happy as a clam with Windows XP and FrameMaker 8 working across the network with no FM crashes or other problems -- though I do have to suffer through the long times to open, save and close files because we now must embed all our graphics instead of referencing them. (I've boohoo'd about that here in the past, so I'll not repeat the faulty reasoning for it once again.)

But doom is in my future, as all four of us are soon to get new platforms with Windows 7 and FM 11.

This I really dread.

Who else out there is having what seems to be incompatibility problems with platforms equipped with FM 11 and Windows 7 and how have you gotten around those problems?

Off-list accounts, etc, are fine.

-- Ken in Atlanta
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