Borrowing Software?

[Steve B]

I don't even know if this is legal to do or not. But, here's my situation. I got a new computer yesterday and the place I got it from did a pretty good job of getting all my files and programs from the old to the new.

But, one program they couldn't move was MicroSoft Picture It, Premium 10. I have lost the disc and the program is no longer made - and no versions were produced after my version. I found one used for $200. Since I already paid for a legal version - I was wondering if it was legal to just borrow a copy and install it (if I was lucky enough to find someone with a copy to lend me, of course).

Is this O.K. to do? Will it work?

B.T.W. - I use it to manage my photos. I know there are a lot of other programs, but this particular program allowed me to type in captions about the photos. Any other software that I used to view the photos with will not show the captions typed in with this software. I had my mother and father tell me stuff about 1,700 slides that I digitized a few years ago. My Dad has since passed - so we can't recreate this information.

[billbenson]

Don't know about the legality, but its doubtful that MS will care. If its still installed and working on your old pc, why not give microsoft a call. They may have a way for you to transfer it?

[nealrm]

Steve,
Transfering the program maybe the least of your worries. I would not trust placing all your information into a discontinued program were it is the only method of retreiving that information. I would start looking for a better method of keep this information. You may look at adding it to the EXIF data in the jpgs.

[Business Attorney]

I was going to say the same things that billbenson and nealrm said, I doubt that Microsoft would care under those circumstances and may even be allowed by your license, but I would be really worried about keeping irreplaceable family photos in a discontinued format. It might be possible to find a program today that would import photos (though perhaps without the information you want), but the older the program gets, the less chance anyone will even support transferring the photos to another format.

[Steve B]

Every photo management program I've seen has no problem importing and I can view the photos - they are stored as .jpg's. It's only the captions that I'm missing out on with the other programs. So, I'd like to be able to have access to the captions as long as possible. When I finally can't use the program in the future, it will be the same situation as I'm in today.

It sounds like I don't need to worry about the legality of it, I just need to find someone with the disk. It's ironic that I chose the software because I wanted to pick something that I knew would be around forever (Microsoft). I guess the company may be around, but they don't have to keep every product.

[billbenson]

It sounds like I don't need to worry about the legality of it, I just need to find someone with the disk. It's ironic that I chose the software because I wanted to pick something that I knew would be around forever (Microsoft). I guess the company may be around, but they don't have to keep every product.

Microsoft is in the business of selling software. If they don't drop something as in this case, they are going to try to make it obsolete in some way (say not compatible with post XP operating systems) so you need to give them more money.

If you don't get this to work, I did a search for "open source photo management software" without the quotes and there are a bunch of free packages for windows out there. If I understand what you mean by captions as your own titles below the image a bunch seem to do that. I didn't look very hard at them though.

[Steve B]

I've tried several and none of them will view these captions. I'm sure the other programs will allow you to type captions also - but they won't read the captions that were already created in this particular software.

[vangogh]

You may not have a choice in moving to another program. I looked up MicroSoft Picture It, Premium 10 and it requires your OS to be Windows 98 or Windows XP. Since Microsoft has stopped supporting both, I'm going to take a guess that your new computer is Windows 7 or possibly Vista. If that's the case MicroSoft Picture It, Premium 10 probably won't run on it, which may also be the reason why it was the one program that couldn't be transferred from the old computer to the new.

If you do manage to get a copy and install it (by the way it probably is illegal to borrow a copy, though I highly doubt Microsoft is going to care about a discontinued product) you should still think about finding something else. Odds are you won't be able to install it on your next computer.

[Steve B]

Correct, new computer is Windows 7. Thanks for looking that stuff up for me - I guess I'll have to view the photos on the old computer and write down the important stuff to transfer to another program. I'm glad I was able to get a new computer while the first one was still functioning fairly well.

[vangogh]

I did a quick search and the top result was Amazon who didn't have a copy for sale. They did list the operating system requirements. It's still possible the program would work for you now, but my guess is before too long it won't. I assume we're talking about a lot of photos. I know this isn't going to be something you'll want to do, but you may want to start retyping.

When you look for software look for things that support standards. That's what usually sticks around from one generation of software to the next. Pay attention to the format of the data.

Most image programs today will probably let you add meta information. You'll be able to see the meta information, just not the way you currently see the captions. The information will likely be able to be read by other programs though, now and in the future. And it wouldn't surprise me if there's something out there that can read the meta info and turn it into a caption.