End of CorelDraw Home and Student X8 Ver.

[Radio Fixer]

My CorelDRAW Student and Home X8 edition that I have used for years, for old radio schematics and for dials and decals, no longer works.  I can get a 2018 Ver but that has very bad reviews.

They have lots of new Progs including one called Corel Vector which I tried a free trial of.  Quite different and wont open any of my old stuff.   All Progs are now on a subscription basis.
 
I guess they nobble old Progs by asking Microsoft to change their part of the Registry and so on the next update of W10 that's it.   I have searched the Web for fixes but none work so far:  guess as soon as someone finds a way they stuff that as well.  Reload doesnt work of course.  Anyway not doing any more old radios so not desperate at the moment. Fortunately I did save all my old work as PDF as well.  Need the odd drawing it will have to be by something else.  Shame as I had developed so much expertise with the CorelD.


What do folks use for drwg packages?  Gimp any good? Easy to learn?

thanks Gary

[Mark Hennessy]

I'm still using an old copy of Paint Shop Pro, and am dreading this happening to it. So far, so good. I'm not sure why, but I've always found it difficult to learn how to use graphics software, so can definitely empathise with you.

I've never got around to trying it with Windows 10, but running a virtual machine might be a solution. Several folk on here have discussed it recently so should be able to advise.

A "brute force" approach is to just keep an old machine lying around for this sort of thing. Believe it or not, I have 2 or 3 Windows 98 machines for those occasions when I need to use old hardware that needs a non-NT machine, such as my old EPROM programmer. I don't need to use them very often, but when the need arises, it's great to not need to worry. Of course, they don't get connected to the internet...

[peter scott]

I'm still on Win 7 but my scanner only works on XP but I have an XP emulator that runs on Win 7 perfectly well. I imagine that you will be able to find a similar emulator to run on Win 10.

Peter.

[Brunel]

Have a look at Tiny Cad.....

Not quite the same, but has lots of features.

Entirely free..!!

https://www.tinycad.net/

[Radio Fixer]

Thanks to all.
Going to try running my copy of CorelD X8 on a W7 laptop? May work on there, if so I would like to make my desk top have a "virtual machine". Dont know how to do that but first try with W7.

Oh! just found this: could be useful. https://en.softonic.com/downloads/emulat...-windows-7

And more: https://www.itpro.co.uk/operating-system...windows-10

Gary

[BusyBee]

What do folks use for drwg packages?  Gimp any good? Easy to learn?

thanks Gary

I have never used Gimp for drawing. I don't doubt that it could be used but I found there was quite a learning curve with it. I use it for advanced photo manipulation, like photoshop. It has many features hence it is rather involved.There will be far more suited packages out there.

Tracy

[Mike Watterson]

Inkscape for vector based artwork
Gimp for bitmap. It's not really harder than Paintshop Pro or Adobe Photoshop once you change the GUI defaults in preferences. It's superior to Paintshop Pro and for most people as useful as Photoshop.

CorelDraw was never great. I used other programs.

[Radio Fixer]

Thanks , will look into Inkscape.

"CorelDraw was never great. "

It was to me as I got to know it well and even did multi-layer silk screens with it and numbers around circles etc. Plus I have a library of components that were built up. It also had an excellent User group. Even Pros helped me out with tips.

Gary

[Mike Watterson]

I had Corel Draw but switched to GSP / GST Designworks on WFWG3.11 then NT4.0 and XP (various versions). Not related to Designworks CAE/CAD from a different company. I used their Pressworks for DTP too up till about 2004. I tried a later version of Corel Draw in about 2006. Now for DTP I use LO Writer and "Export To" PDF if it's for paper or an extra "Save As" docx and conversion with Calibre for ebooks. Cover art is done in The Gimp using layers, separate barcode generator and editable vector based text paths (which PSP only did image rendering of text and Designworks was poor for images, being vector drawing).

Whatever you are used to is easiest, though sometimes something new is easier once you learn it.

[Radio Fixer]

You are way ahead of me Mike    

Gary