Compatibility with 64-bit Operating Systems & Software

Last reviewed: 08/31/2010
Article ID: R11302

The information in this article applies to:

Summary

Tab3 and PracticeMaster software is compatible with 64-bit versions of Windows operating systems. This article outlines minor issues that have been encountered with the 64-bit operating systems and how to work around them.

Microsoft Office 2010 64-bit Support
(Excel, Internet Explorer, Outlook, Word)

Microsoft Office 2010 Products, such as Excel, Outlook, and Word, are provided in both 32- and 64-bit editions.

Microsoft states the following on their Web site: http://store.microsoft.com/microsoft/Office-Home-and-Business-2010/product/B4D93AC9.

"...Office 2010 includes both 32- and 64-bit versions for a single computer. We recommend the 32-bit version, which runs great on both 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows. People who routinely use very large documents or spreadsheets that need more than 2 GB of memory may want to run the 64-bit version, but many common add-ins for Office don't run correctly in the 64-bit edition."

Additionally, although the FairCom 32-bit ODBC Driver can be installed and run on a 64-bit operating system, it is not compatible with 64-bit versions of Microsoft Office.

FairCom 32-bit ODBC Driver

The 64-bit versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7 contain both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the ODBC Administrator program. Both programs are named "odbcad32.exe" and are identical when opened; however, the 64-bit version is stored in "C:\Windows\System32\" and the 32-bit version is installed in "C:\Windows\SysWoW64\". Additionally, both 32-bit and 64-bit drivers will appear in both ODBC Administrator programs.

Troubleshooting

Attempting to use a 32-bit driver with the 64-bit Administrator will result in the following errors:

"The setup routines for the FairCom 32bit ODBC Driver ODBC driver could not be found. Please reinstall the driver."
  --and--
"Errors Found:
The specified DSN contains an architecture mismatch between the Driver and Application"

The FairCom 32-bit ODBC Driver Installation does not install the correct shortcut for the "32bit ODBC Administrator" program to the Windows start menu. To correct this path, follow the instructions below:

This issue exists with the installer for version 3.14 of the FairCom 32-bit ODBC Driver.

Note that the ODBC (32-bit) icon in the Control Panel is installed correctly with Windows Vista, and does not need to be changed. However, the same icon in the Windows 7 64-bit Control Panel will open the 64-bit Administrator (as will the Data Sources (ODBC) shortcut in Administrative Tools).

More information on these issues can be found in Microsoft KB Article 942976.

16-bit Program Support

16-bit programs are not supported on 64-bit versions of Windows. This includes all versions of the DOS interface programs for Tabs3 and PracticeMaster, including the following:

Note that DOS programs cannot be run under a 64-bit operating system; however, they can be installed on a 64-bit server and be run from a non-64-bit workstation.

Other Limitations

For other limitations of 64-bit versions of Windows, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

References


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