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March 2012 - Special Update Offer

Welcome to our March 2012 newsletter.

To celebrate our new web site (see below), and for those of you who have delayed getting your Take Command v13 update, we're announcing our New Website Procrastinators Special.  If you update before March 15, 2012, the v13 update is only $39.95 (regular price $49.95).  Enter the coupon code newsite on the order form at our web store..

JP Software Web Site Update

If you have visited http://jpsoft.com in the last few days, you’ve probably noticed we’ve redone our web site.

The previous version was all html+css, and it was getting progressively more difficult to manage as we added new pages or edited the existing ones. After some deliberation and testing of alternatives, we settled on the latest version (2.5) of the Joomla CMS. Joomla is fairly easy to learn and to configure, and it has a very large and active user community and a vast array of add-ons (both free and commercial).

We selected a template not too dissimilar to the previous web site’s look and feel, made a few customizations, and proceeded to transfer the 1200+ pages from the old site to the new. We’ve very happy with the new site, and it’s certainly far easier to maintain and update. The new site is slightly slower than the old one — we are still working on tweaking the performance, so that should improve over time.

If you notice anything missing or not working correctly on the new site, or if you have any comments on the looks or functionality, please let us know at [email protected].

Tip of the Month - Take Command x64

Take Command has been available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions since Take Command v11.0.  But we've noticed that a lot of you are still using the 32-bit version of Take Command with your 64-bit version of Windows.  There seems to be two prevailing beliefs for this:

  1. 32-bit applications use less memory (true, but irrelevant given the relatively small size of Take Command and the amount of available memory on most Windows x64 systems.
  2. 32-bit applications are faster (false - Take Command 32-bit will always be slower on an x64 version of Windows than the equivalent Take Command x64).

There are several significant drawbacks in running a 32-bit command processor in Windows x64:

  1. WOW64 (Windows 32-bit On Windows 64-bit) is an emulation layer for running 32-bit apps on x64 Windows.  This means that the Windows API calls in 32-bit apps have two or more extra dll layers to pass through before calling the native ntdll.dll, so 32-bit apps will be slower.
  2. WOW64 registry redirection only allows a 32-bit process to see the 32-bit registry view, so if you are using registry variable functions in TCC, you cannot read or write to the 64-bit part of the registry.
  3. WOW64 file redirection prevents 32-bit processes from seeing (or running) the 64-bit Windows applications and dll's.  For example, if you try to "dir c:\windows\system32", you'll be (silently) redirected to the c:\windows\sysWOW64 directory instead (where Windows keeps the 32-bit versions of some of the system utilities).  But not all of the system applications have 32-bit versions, so to run the 64-bit-only versions, you'll need to start a 64-bit app (like CMD.EXE -- or preferably, Take Command x64).
  4. Some system variables will only work if the process is 64-bit, or return different values if the process is 32-bit.  This can be particularly problematic if you have registry values that use environment variables (REG_EXPAND_SZ).

We strongly recommend that everyone running a 64-bit version of Windows (XP, Server 2003, Server 2008, Vista, or Windows 7) should also be using Take Command x64.

New Feature Requests

We're currently designing the next major update of Take Command. If you have something you'd like to see added (or if you want to support somebody else's suggestion), click on the orange Feedback tab on the left margin of any of our web or forum pages.

Take Command Educational Discounts

JP Software offers a 50% discount on Take Command (new copies and upgrades) to students and faculty. (You will need a .edu address to qualify.)

For information on how to order, contact us at support.jpsoft.com.

Take Command v13 Upgrades and New Copies

Take Command v13.03.4 is the current release. You can see the full list of new features in v13 on the What’s New page in the v13 online help.

Upgrading from any prior version of Take Command, TCC, 4NT or 4DOS is only $49.95.

Download Take Command v13 30 day trial version
Download Take Command v13 x64 30 day trial version

Buy Take Command v13 at our web store

Offer 1 - For the next two weeks (until March 15, 2012), we are offering $10.00 off the individual upgrade price ($39.95 instead of $49.95). Enter the coupon code newsite on the order form.

Offer 2 -- As an added inducement, we are allowing current users of Take Command or TCC / 4NT to purchase additional licenses at the upgrade price, including volume discounts. That's right, instead of $99.95 for additional licenses, you can get them for $49.95 or less. So if you want to add some additional licenses, now is the time. For example, if you have 5 licenses and want to add an additional 5, just order 10 upgrades and get them for the volume discount price of $36 per copy.

Offer 3 -- We are also offering a $30 discount on new copy prices if you go to our Facebook fan page (facebook.com/TakeCommand). The price is only $69.95 after discount. Feel free to forward this email to friends you think might benefit from the power of Take Command.