Any reason to keep old versions?

Apparently you had a reason to keep old ones in the past. Is that reason still valid?

 

I keep the latest of the current major version and last major version for development and testing, but otherwise, no. The only exception is when I support systems that run older versions, then I'll keep the latest of the needed major version.

I do not ever support or use older-than-current builds of any particular major build (so one 18.x, one 17.x, and that's it unless needed. I still have one site that runs 15.x, but I run it in a VM for testing)

 

I used to keep separately every version I installed. Now I just keep the major versions: I don't uninstall them, but as the IT staff replace the machines every few years, I get rid of the old versions anyway.
I use a junction so that I can easily switch version without editing the many shortcuts that reference TCMD. The rare situation when I do switch to an older version is when I stumble upon a severe enough problem on a test version.

 

The main ones i have are 8.01 on Windows 2000, and the latest on the surface.

 

Two of my former employers (entirely different companies) gave admin rights to the technicians, who were allowed to install any software that didn't require a license fee, so I could install TCC/LE ver.13. In both cases, I was not allowed to install commercial versions of Take Command or TCC, even if I paid for them out-of-pocket.

Therefore, my main expertise with Take Command is with its batch scripting features, not with the GUI features of the full product. So I would keep two versions of Take Command at home (one current plus TCC/LE) and use TCC/LE at work. Most of the time, I made sure that any batch files or scripts I wrote would run under both versions. That also explains why most of my TCC scripts use sed, awk, or some free GNU utilities rather than TPIPE.

So to answer the original question, one reason to keep two versions is to coordinate batch files that you write and update both at work and at home.

 

There were some changes concerning string handling with non-ascii chars (esp. around utf8) during versions, no doubt mostly for the better.

However if your current script were tuned for the older methods, running them with a new tcc version might break them w/o you realizing it if you don't specifically look for it... my example was metadata reading/writing around exiftool.

So strictly for peace of mind and debugging/comparison purposes, keeping older versions might be a smart idea (or install tcc-le to have an widespread older version).

 

I have 8.01 installed in Windows 2000. But when i build period virtual machines, a period version of software goes on as well. For OS/2, i use the latest 4OS2/TCMDOS2, since i have managed to coax these to live together in the same directory. 4NT/TCMD 8.01 do the same, and 4DOS and TCMD16 are kept separate from these.

With TC, i still keep 16 around, because that is the last version before Rex did the big hack on the code, and 18 is kept as the current version on the surface. v18 had enough upgrade features that i was keen on to go 'wow' with. I have a batch that works under 2000 that does the same thing, but i added a third registry key to this, so i could put my own directories into the list, like cdf.cmd exe32 will change to the path where i keep my 32-bit utilities. It works the same way as shell folders, but looks at hkcu\software\wendy\folders.

Conset is Frank Westlake's utility. "Shelexec" is microsoft's utility on their cdroms. shellexec reg: opens registry keys using a URL style open. Regjump (Sysintern) or regmagik (shareware) usually respond to this. The \Software\Wendy\Folders is populated by a batch file, so it's easy to change and set up on different machines or operating systems.

Code:

@echo off
:: cd shell folder.
set zdir=
set zshf=Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
if /i "%1"=="/m" goto :hklm
if /i "%1"=="/u" goto :hkcu
if /i "%1"=="/w" goto :hkwe
set zcmd=chdir
set zhere=%*
if "%1"=="/o" set zcmd=open
if "%1"=="/o" set zhere=%zhere:~3%
conset /q /k zdir=HKLM\%zshf%\%zhere%
if not "%zdir%"=="" goto :doit
conset /q /k zdir=HKCU\%zshf%\%zhere%
if not "%zdir%"=="" goto :doit
conset /q /k zdir=HKLM\Software\Wendy\Folders\%zhere%
if not "%zdir%"=="" goto :doit
goto :end
:hklm
shelexec reg:hklm\%zshf%
goto :end
:hkcu
shelexec reg:hkcu\%zshf%
goto :end
:hkwe
shelexec reg:hklm\software\wendy\folders
goto :end

:doit
set zcxm=
if %zcmd%==chdir cd /d %zdir%
if %zcmd%==open shelexec %zdir%
set zdir=
:end