Many practices are finding that their old hardware
has become outdated. While those old machines have
provided excellent service, they have become too
slow, too limited in RAM, and too congested in hard
drive space to continue serving. Making the move to a
new machine is not difficult as long as you follow
certain steps.
Install Office Manager or Case Manager
on your new computer from the most recent set of
installation disks you have received from SOS. During
the installation process, the programs make changes
in your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files which are
very important to the smooth running of your
software. Do not just back up your program files from
one machine and restore them to another. Chances are
the program will not work properly.
Next, back up your data files (the *.DAT, *.MEM,
and *.K* files) from your old machine and restore
them to the same directory on your new machine. If
you have changed the name of the directory in which OM
or CM resides on your new machine, be sure
to specify the new directory name when you restore
the data files.
If you have been using Office
Manager for some time or have a large number of
patients or transactions, you may find that your data
files have grown quite large. While this is not a
problem for Office Manager, as it is designed to
handle very large data sets, you may encounter some
difficulty in backing up your *.DAT, *.MEM and *.K*
files if you want to transfer them to your new
computer via floppy disks. This can occur when the
size of the combined files becomes greater than the
capacity of the floppy disk. In fact, at times, the
file JOURNAL.DAT can more than fill a floppy disk by
itself.
The problem becomes apparent when
you try to copy a very large file onto a floppy disk
that does not have a large enough capacity to hold
the file. Your computer will report that the disk is
full and will not save the entire file. Simply
inserting another floppy disk will not work.
Unless you have an alternative
means of transferring large amounts of data between
two computers (e.g., being on a network, emailing the
programs to yourself and retrieving them on the new
computer, using a product such as LapLink, having a
zip drive etc.), you will likely need to rely on
floppy disks. While you may be able to fit all of
your data files on one disk, chances are that you
will need to consider compressing the data or
breaking it up into smaller chunks.
Probably the easiest solution is to
use a program designed to either compress files into
smaller packages or break data up so that it will fit
on separate disks. To do this, you may wish to
consider using a program such as WINZIP (available
from WWW.WINZIP.COM) or FILESPLIT (available from
WWW.PARTRIDGESOFT.COM/FSPLIT.HTM). If you are using Windows 3.1 on either
machine, you should download the 16-bit version of
either program. Each of these programs can assist you
in saving and transferring large amounts of data.
They work by spanning the data across 2 or more
floppy disks in an organized way. The data can then
be transferred to your new computer without
corruption. Please consult the documentation that
accompanies these programs for more information.
If you are unable to access these
programs, you must find another way. Luckily, OM
installs a program on your computer to assist you in
compressing files. Compressed files take up less
space and may enable you to transfer all of your data
files at one time using a single floppy disk.
To use the included program, called
LHA, to transfer your data files to a new computer,
simply follow these steps:
- You must enter the commands
from a DOS prompt. If you are a Windows 95
user, click on the start button in the lower
left corner of your screen. On the menu which
appears, move your mouse to the Programs
selection and then over to MS-DOS Prompt.
Click on this icon or text to begin a command
prompt. If you are using Windows 3.1, you can
find the MS-DOS Prompt icon in your Main
program group. You activate it by double
clicking on it. If you are using a program
without Windows, just go directly to your
MS-DOS Prompt.
- If you accepted the default
settings during installation of OM, you will
need to type the following text: CD
C:\OM <ENTER>. You should now be
in the OM directory. If you are not, you will
need to determine on which drive in which
directory OM4 is installed and type CD
driveletter:\directoryname
<ENTER> to move to that
directory.
- To assure that all your files
can be copied properly type the following:
ATTRIB –R *.*
<ENTER>.
- To create a compressed copy
called DATA.LZH of all of your OM data files,
type the following: LHARC A DATA *.DAT *.MEM
*.K* <ENTER>.
- When the program finishes,
check the size of the file by typing DIR
DATA.LZH <ENTER>. Note the size
of the file. If it is less than 1.4 MB (or
roughly 1,400,000 bytes), you should be able
to copy the file to a floppy disk without a
problem by inserting a floppy diskette and
typing COPY DATA.LZH A: <ENTER>.
If the file is less than 1.4MB, you may skip
to step 8 now.
- If the size of the compressed
file is over 1.4 MB, you will have to use a
slightly different strategy. You may be able
to remove one or two larger files from the
compressed data set and transfer them
separately to the new computer. Usually the
file that takes up the most space will be
your JOURNAL.DAT file, so we will remove it
from the DATA.LZH file by entering the
following at the DOS prompt: LHARC D DATA
JOURNAL.DAT <ENTER>. Now examine the
size of the DATA.LZH file again by typing DIR
DATA.LZH and <ENTER>. If the file is
under 1.4MB, you may transfer the file to
your floppy disk and then on to the new
computer as described above. You can then
transfer the JOURNAL.DAT file by compressing
it using the LHARC A JOURNAL JOURNAL.DAT
<ENTER> command. This command will
create a file in your current directory
called JOURNAL.LZH which may fit on a floppy
disk and be transferred by typing COPY
JOURNAL.LZH A: and pressing <ENTER>.
- If DATA.LZH is still too large
to copy to a single diskette, remove the
JET.DAT file from the archive using the same
procedure as above. Enter the following at
the DOS prompt: LHARC D DATA JET.DAT
<ENTER>. Now examine the size of the
DATA.LZH file again by typing DIR DATA.LZH
and <ENTER>. If the file is under
1.4MB, you may transfer the file to your
floppy disk and then on to the new computer
as described above. You can then transfer the
JET.DAT file by compressing it using the
LHARC A JET JET.DAT <ENTER> command.
This command will create a file in your
current directory called JET.LZH which may
fit on a floppy disk and be transferred by
typing COPY JET.LZH A: and pressing
<ENTER>.
- Take the diskette(s) with your
compressed data files to your new computer.
Be sure to install the OM program before
transferring data files. Insert the diskette
into the computer's floppy drive and follow
the procedure in step #1 and #2 to get to a
DOS prompt and to enter the OM directory.
- You will now type the
following line to extract the data files to
your new computer: LHARC X A:\DATA –C
and press <ENTER>. If you created a
separate file called JOURNAL.LZH in step 6,
you can now insert this diskette and type
LHARC X A:\JOURNAL –C and then press
<ENTER>. If you created a separate file
called JET.LZH in step 7, you can now insert
this diskette and type LHARC X A:\JET –C
and then press <ENTER>.
- When you have completed
extracting (melting) your data files, type
EXIT to return to Windows.
- Your OM data should now be
transferred to your new computer.
