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Hey everyone,
I have a kinda 'think out of the box' question ... I have this really old laptop. The laptop has NO CD-Drive. It only has an 'A' drive.
I want to put Microsoft Office on this laptop. The problem is that my version of Microsoft Office 97 is on a CD.
How do I get Microsoft Office on the laptop?
Can I create a whole bunch of floppy disks? How do I do that so that the installation is seemless.
Thank you guys!
Katie ;)
400 floppys = 1 CD, ok you don't need them all but even a 100 floppy's is going to be a drag
Need more info about your latop - what other ports does it have, PCMCIA, networking, USB.
If the answer is to the above is none AND you don't want full office capabiliies just word processing and spreadsheets then hunt around on the net for some old floppy based software - pre bloatware - I had a darn good smartsuite application (V4 I think) that fitted onto 5 floppy's
Techy n Welsh
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Do you have another PC around with a CD player? If so, maybe you could look into networking them together with a crossover cable, sharing the CD player and mapping to it from the laptop. Sounds complicated I know. Figure it out though - 300+MB on the CD maybe. Only 1.44MB per floppy. =how many floppies? Too bad you don't know anyone with an external CD player you could hook up to the laptop.
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Hey guys,
Thank ya for the quick response! Ok, I know a little about computers, but not that much! :)
Rayok: It doesn't have a USB port - I know that for sure. I'm not sure what you mean by PCMCIA and I don't really know where to look for a network port.
Rick: I do have another computer with a CD, but I'm not sure how to do that crossover cable thing you were talking about.
Any ideas? I appreciate your help guys!
Talk to ya in a bit,
K ;)
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Office Pro 4.3 on 21 disks. I don't think you could simply copy the compressed files to floppy and make an install with it. As was said, connect to another machine somehow.
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Hi everyone,
How do I put Office on disks? I ask because there are a few files off the CD that are over 1.44MB. Any ideas on how to fit the large single files on a disk? Thank you!
K ;)
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Something else you might take into account. Do you have enough hard drive space? Maybe someone could post the amount of hard drive space it uses.
Also, with 16mb of RAM, I suspect that it will be incredibly slow.
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Hey everyone,
The memory shouldn't be a problem ... the RAM will be, but I'm ok with a really slow prog.
How can I make the disks?
Thanks!
K
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There is a free program called Open Office found here http://www.openoffice.org/ it can be downloaded from the internet. It is compatible with MS, and other suites. It is a big download, and will take time, but it is free, and a fairly good office suite.
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Hi Mike,
The computer doesn't have internet capability! Ahh!! Hehehe. Seriously guys, how do I make those disks? Some of those individual files are bigger than 1.44 MB!
Thanks!
K ;)
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You could set up a direct cable connection with a parallel port crossover cable. It would be faster than floppy discs.
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Hey Dave,
How do I set up a direct cable connection with parallel port crossover cable? I'm not even sure what a crossover cable is ... sorry :) Any suggetions on where I can find out information about this? Thanks!
K ;)
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Direct Cable Connection is an option in Windows 98 to network together computers without network cards by using the printer ports.
You need to buy a Direct Cable Connection cable - try eBay if you can't find one locally - and then you send the files from one computer to the other (it's a very old-fashioned system like two-way radio, you have to disconnect and reconnect the other way in order to send things back and forward).
The other alternative for files bigger than 1.44Mb is to use WinZip to create a spanned set (split the file across two or more disks).
Best of luck!
Roy.
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Hi Katie, rayok, Rick McNabb, pierre, OtheHill, ham30, Mike Peters, dave01, Roy Hunter, hi everybody
A rather simple and quick solution could be to buy a 2.5" to 3.5" Hard drive adapter. Click for a image: UNV25IDE or UNV25IDE-M. It should cost you just a few dollars.
With the 2.5" to 3.5" Hard drive adapter you can connect your laptop's hard drive to a desktop computer, copy the contents of the Office CD-ROM to the laptop's hard drive, place the drive back in the laptop and install Office, if the setup allows you to pull it a leg (not being installed from the CD-ROM).(http://www.computerplug.com/access_mountingTech.htm#molded)Regarding the cable one is talking about, here is a image of what to expect/look for. If I was you, I would choose the parallel version (CPBD*) over the serial version (CL*) (parallel has a higher throughput), USB (CUSB*) most likely isn't a option since we are dealing with this
"really old laptop".
(http://www.computerplug.com/cable_filetransfer.htm)As for Winzip, I doubt if it will be able to get it done on this occasion. The installation files are already compressed. Trying to compress and span them over multiple disk with Winzip will most likely make the file(s) only bigger, and thus more floppy disks will be needed.
In the Freeware section of our site there is a link to File Splitter. You can give it a try, but again I'm not sure if the setup of Office will allow you to pull it a leg.
(http://www.mesich.com)Best Regards and Wishes,
The Count, Co-webmaster of mesich.com
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The Count has a good suggestion, but the hard drive on many laptops is not easily removed. And it's not definite that Office will install from the hard drive. Maybe someone has attempted that before and will add to this thread.
Instead of zipping individual files, you could zip the entire Office CD into one large zip file and span multiple floppy discs.
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Seems to me that if you get it all on the machine via stacks of floppies (and unsplitting large files) it is rather hopeful to think that it will then install from the HD. There is a chance I suppose if you get all the folders right but I daresay it will be geared to expecting a CD.
Sorry about the doom and gloom but this is one I would love to be proved wrong about.
Derek.W
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My copy of Office 97 Pro says it contains 647MB. That is alot of floppies. Sometimes we make it harder than necessary.
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you could direct connect between a desktop with a cdrom, and that laptop, only if there are serial or parallel ports on both computers. if it has a pcmcia port(about two inches wide hole, thickness same as a floppy) you could setup a network. or even attach a external cdrom.
Tim
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here's the directions to setup a direct connection.
http://www.lpt.com/Support/DCC-SetUp/dcc-setup.htm
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