Considering a Timeslips upgrade

Question

I&rsquo;m hoping someone can give me some advice. I do computer consulting for a law firm. They had been using a very old version of Timeslips (from the &lsquo;90s when it still said Timeslips Corporation). Anyway, they bought a 5-user license of Timeslips 2010. Unfortunately, the person handling their billing at the time was not willing or able to learn a new piece of software so it sat on a shelf. 
 Fast forward about 5 years and they have new employees and are finally making use of the Timeslips 2010 software. Unfortunately, they no longer have access to the service releases for that product and without them it is buggy as hell. Something goes wrong with it about every day. I think feature-wise Timeslips is going to be their best bet, but it is very tough to convince them to buy more software when their current version runs so poorly. 
 Is there no way to get access to those older service releases? I realize customer support is expensive, but providing access to service releases that are already written for software that was already paid for seems like a pretty basic level of support. I&rsquo;m sure they would be willing to upgrade to a newer version if they could see some stability, but it seems like there&rsquo;s no way to accomplish that with the 2010 version without the service releases. 
 If anyone has any insight, it would be appreciated. 
 Chad

Nancy Duhon · Answer

Yeah, that is really frustrating. Thing is, I don't think the Service Releases are going to do much for your given the symptoms. But it would be easy enough to put them on and see. They are relatively small files, you load them directly on the server copy and then the locals will be prompted the next time they log in to apply to the workstations. You could then tell the firm honestly, that we have done everything we could with what they have. The version they are running now is a Borland database, utilizing BDE (Borland Database Engine) and Paradox. Admittedly somewhat dated in the technology world. BDE/Paradox is somewhat notorious for being intolerant of subpar network performance. Now, that is subpar in BDE/Paradox's "opinion." Some of that is just (as Caren has said) newer server OSes and networking technology. So, for example, we have seen firms using say v2010, and having no problems. But then they get a new server and see trouble in Timeslips. Well, Timeslips didn't change, the environment did. But they will want Timeslips to be responsible for running in the newer environment. I.e., it couldn't possibly be the new server's "fault," so it must be Timeslips that is the culprit. When in reality it is much more like an incompatibility issue between the two. IF they decide to upgrade to v2017, it is a WHOLE different kettle of fish. v2017 uses a completely different database under the hood. It is now a Firebird SQL architecture. Note, not Microsoft SQL, but Firebird (open source) SQL. Which is much more up to date, and true client server. So if you have too much trouble getting v2010 to work, or the service releases don't settle things down, then we would advise upgrading the seven versions old v2010 to the new v2017. Firebird really is the database that you want to be on going forward. Hope that helps.

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