Q: When getting ready to install Disk 2 of the Trains Complete Collection, after inserting the disk a dialog pops up on Windows XP saying “Please go to the Control Panel to install and configure system components.”
A: This is a known bug with some configurations and is dependent on when the disk is put into the system. Hitting OK will allow the installation to proceed. You don’t need to go into the Control Panel.
Q: Why doesn’t the scroll bar go all the way to the bottom of the window in the Trains Complete Collection?
A: This is due to the manner in which the application resizes as well as the monitor resolution. The reason that the scroll area does not extend beyond the area is that there is not enough room to fully display the next row of images.
Q: Can I rotate the pages of the magazine?
A: Unfortunately at this time pages cannot be rotated for easier reading on screen. For those pages that aren’t in portrait orientation, you can print the PDF from the Trains Complete Collection.
Q: Some pages appear crooked when printed.
A: Some pages might be slightly skewed and may not align perfectly. This is due to the age and condition of the magazines and the capability of the scanning process.
I’m, running Vista. I inserted the 1st disc and that ran OK. I installed to L:\ a USB attached drive not C:\ - parameters were identical simply changed C to L. At the end of that disc it simply finished, no prompts to insert the 2nd disc. I had a look at the 2nd disc but there was no setup file so I decided to run the application that had installed. That bought up a picture, but no prompt that I could see so I clcked the picture which gave me an error - I failed to note the precise error. I tried to continue but I got an error so I cancelled. That also errored. I tried again to cancel - error. And again - error. Then suddenly it started copying PDFs from the DVD. It’s finished and the database seems to be complete and it works but I am less than impressed by the installation process.
Inserting the first DVD generated a nice installation window telling me to drag one folder onto another, which caused the machine to copy the first DVD onto the hard drive. At the end of the copying, nothing further happened, so I ejected that DVD and inserted the second. Nothing happened. I manually copied the files inside the Data-TRN/Issues folder on the DVD to the corresponding folder on the hard drive and all the issues seem to be available inside the application, but I wonder whether I lost anything in the process. How is the installation of the second DVD supposed to work on the Mac?
The “print” icon generates a dialog box with the usual buttons to print, to preview, or to create a pdf, but when I press a button the dialog box goes away and nothing happens. It’s clearly a problem with the Trains application, because other programs can print, and in any case the “preview” and " create pdf" operations are independent of the printer. Have others been able to print on the Mac?
Open the program and after the splash screen I’m taken to the search page which shows 844 results (as though I’ve searched and the entire collection matched). I presume that’s how it’s supposed to work. I see thumbnails of covers. If I pull the slider down I cannot see cover thumbnails beyond early 60’s. If I pull the slider farther down the thumbs do not change but if I mouse over them the info next to the cursor reveals that I am actually hovering over some newer issue, up to and including Dec. 2010 or Web Extras, if I go all the way. In other words, the thumbnail no longer matches the link.
Then when I double-click to open such an issue, I can see pages but if I go back to thumbnail view instead of seeing thumbnails of individual pages I see a screen with blanks where the thumbnails are supposed to go. I can mouse around and the legend indicates what the page will be if I click on it but no thumbs.
So far as I know the installation went normally and both seem to fully load. Somehow the thumbnails for later issues just aren’t there. I will delete and try again but I do not have high hopes since I had the same / similar result trying it on my laptop. This machine is XP Home, SP2. Laptop is XP Pro ( Not sure of SP but probably 2).
That’s the same way mine opens up, since it displays all the issues, I was guessing this is how it was designed. I can browse all issues in or out of sequence, or find individual issues if the new Trains on-line index refers to them.
It sounds like the second disk didn’t load properly. I can get the thumbnails up for all issues through December 2010 and they do match.
The one issue I found with the search feature is if you have a magazine that was scanned with multiple page spreads, the scanned page number does not mat
hI. i too had problems with Vista. I finally figured it out by dinking around. I found that I had to re-start my computer for the short-cut symbol to change to the Trains red “T”. I have emailed Trains about some suggestions for future runs of the DVD,. I also would like them to fix it so that you could rotate the pages as needed and wanted.
With that said, it’s an awesome collection of railroad history and information, and I am enjoying the heck out of the DVD collection. From what I hear the response has far surpassed their expectations! Hope that they will do the same thing with Classic Trains Magazine too.,
Is there or will there be a way to transfer the password protected PDFs onto a tablet (esp. the iPad) without having to install the application around them? Or will there be an app for the iPad in which the PDFs can be read? I bought the DVDs but I’m a little disappointed that they are chained to less convenient means of accessing them.
I initially installed the program on a USB external hard drive and had the same problem of no cover thumbnails beyond the early 60’s. I compared the file count in the Thumbnails folder of the DVD and found that considerably less than the 64,500 files had been installed. I uninstalled the program then reinstalled on the internal hard drive and all of the thumbnails were installed. My OS is Windows XP SP3.
I’m not sure how Kalmbach expects us to discover these things, since a search for “DVD fix” on trainsmag.com yields 0 results. Here’s the link for the patch:
In case the links embedded in this message don’t work for some reason, you can find them by going to www.kalmbach.com, scrolling to the bottom of the page, and clicking on the “FAQ” link.
To update my situation, with Megan’s help I reinstalled the program and the “favorites” patch, and everything works ! Appreciate the quick and conscientious response to my apparently unique situation.
what are we going to do with future editions? Now I have 75 years on disc am I going to have to start keeping paper copies again? I’d rather like a subscription option to get another DVD at the end of each year that ADDS to the existing collection.
Looking waaaay ahead I have programs and data from Windows 3.11 that no longer work on Vista or Windows 7. I hope I’ll still be able to use my trains DVD when I upgrade to Windows 8, 9, 10, 11…
A valid concern. We have watched computer media go from punch cards to magnetic tape to Very large Disk packs to 8 inch floppies to 5 1/4 inch floppies to E-Proms to Zip drives to 3 1/2 inch floppies to CDs to DVDs to dual layer DVDs to Flash drives to Blu-Ray discs. One has to wonder where it will go next. Will there be a way for old data to migrate to whatever is next?
An update to my earlier message: I reinstalled by following the improved installation instructions on the Kalmbach web site, and the application read disk 2 automatically.
But the “print” icon still doesn’t work (13 inch unibody Mac laptop, MacOS 10.6.6.) The usual dialog box for printing appears, and when I press any of the appropriate buttons (to print, preview, or generate a PDF) the dialog box disappears and nothing happens. I’ve tried two different printers, and in any case, I would expect to be able to generate a PDF or postscript file even if no printer is installed. The response from Kalmbach is that thousands of people have been able to print, so something must be wrong with my configuration, followed by some advice that applies only to Microsoft Windows PCs. I wonder whether any of those “thousands” have been using MacOS 10.6 rather than a Windows PC.
So, my question: has anybody reading this been able to print on a Mac, and if so, which Mac and which OS version?
(And yes, given the bumps people have encountered with installation, scrolling, and printing, one does wonder whether the Trains application will continue to work with future operating systems. If you have virtual machine software, it might be a good idea to set up a copy of the application running inside a virtual image of one of today’s operating systems, so you can run it that way if it stops working under Windows 2020 or MacOS 20; VMWare, for example, will probably continue to work for many OS upgrades to come.)
