Seeking Jaws 7.0 or 7.1 install (file

  • From: "Yardbird" <yardbird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "JFW List" <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 09:51:30 -0700

I've been talking to tech support about my defective Jaws 8 over a long 
sequence of phone calls, first to Tier 1 and then, at my insistence, to Tier 
2, which led me to John Carson. I had to insist on escalation because the 
Tier 1 folks have to run through their sequence of getting you to uninstall 
and reinstall, over and over, until your head starts spinning and your land 
line phone bill starts to look like a teenager's cell phone bill, and every 
time you do what they say and need to call again because their instructions 
haven't enabled you to resolve anything, you get another Tier 1 person and 
they insist that you go through the same round of uninstalling and 
reinstalling, as if there's nowhere to go from there and somehow, as if by 
magic, things will be put right during one of these repeated procedures. I 
may be exaggerating a little, but it's so frustrating having to go through 
the same bits again and again.

So I got escalated up to John Carson, and naturally he had me uninstall and 
reinstall, too. In fact, first from my CD and then, when that didn't work 
right, from the online file, which I first had to re-download because I 
couldn't find it on my computer for some reason. Then he had me do a Windows 
Restore so that any changes made over the previous month would be undone in 
case such changes might have caused my problems. I doubted that, having 
installed nothing more exotic than IE7 recently, but did as he said. Then 
reinstalled, again. All the while being thankful that I'd retained Jaws 7 on 
my system (I also have a copy of Jaws 6.2, but I never revert to it as I 
have done sometimes when Jaws 8 has been difficult. Why go back any earlier 
than I have to, is my reasoning.).

Well, he says the next step is that he'll want me to run some Windows 
utility that will do a major cleanup of uninstalled software-- I'll bet this 
means it will clean out the Registry as Jaws should have done on its own), 
and preparatory to doing that (with sighted help, because I'm not handy with 
Windows Narrator), he'll want me to  uninstall all earlier versions of Jaws 
from my computer, and then this utility will clean up everything all at 
once, including all traces left behind by regular uninstall procedures.

So during our last phone call, last week, I asked him "John, you know I 
couldn't have managed to use my computer at all so many times when Jaws 8 
has misbehaved, and been able to uninstall Jaws 8, if I didn't have my good 
old Jaws 7. And with Jaws 8 having been so problematic to this point, why 
would I want to be without Jaws 7? That sounds a little impractical."

And he said, basically, hey, what's the problem? Jaws 8 is going to work 
fine, after we do this stuff. So why would you need Jaws 7 anymore?

Well, forgive me for being skeptical. But since each attempt to fix my Jaws 
8 has failed-- the latest is that it won't even install anymore; whether I 
try installing it from the CD or from the updated version on the FS site, 
the Install Shield Wizard says it can't find what must be a crucial 
Eloquence file with a .dll extension and refuses to proceed. So I'm running 
Jaws 7 all the time, since last time I talked to him.

I figure the safest thing would be for me to make sure I have the Jaws 7 
install file on my hard drive in case the next round of treatment doesn't 
work, either. But I have two questions:

1. I may have the Jaws 7 CD among the things in the file drawer where I keep 
all that stuff, but I'm not a Braille reader and don't want to go through 
all the software CDs in that drawer, putting them one by one into my CD 
drive to see what they are. that would be ridiculously laborious and time 
consuming. So I'd much prefer just to have the install file in a folder, 
ready to execute if necessary. Didn't someone post a message not long ago 
offering a whole group of such program installation  files for older Jaws 
versions? Can someone tell me how to access these?

2. I've certainly installed the latest Jaws over earlier versions, just as 
you're supposed to do. But I've never even thought about installing an 
*earlier* version when the latest one is on the system. Is this kosher at 
all, to begin with, and if so, what are the special precautions to take when 
doing that?

Thanks. Sorry the post is so long-winded, but I'm really frustrated and it's 
hard to be more succinct in the state I'm in.

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