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Unpinning VFP 8...

Even though it's a relic from Windows XP and was substantially upgraded (or downgraded depending on your view) in Vista, the classic Start menu really does have some great features (while I don't agree with everything this article (18 things Vista & XP need) from the UK PC Advisor notes - the fact that it was WRONG about some things too, the point about Mac's standarised menu ribbon is bang on)

"Pinning" is one of my favorites. While XP automatically puts regularly used applications on your start menu for easy access, you can easily add to this list yourself by right-clicking and choosing to "Pin to start menu". I do this regularly for tools I know I always use at least once a month (like West Wind Help Builder, ISTool and others ) - so I don't have to go scrounging through the program files menu. Even though I do use SlickRun for fast access to programs, I never got around to adding all of them on there.

But for the past few months, there's been something on my Start Menu that never gets touched and that's VFP 8. I kept it around as some of my colleagues still had applications running with the older runtime and I might have to go back to it, but it's just cluttering up space. I find myself cursing when I realize there is code that I have to verify is VFP 8 compliant or can't use MemberData in my property names.

So today, I unpinned it. While it hasn't yet joined the older VFP IDEs on my attached "old" drive where I keep FPW26 and VFP 5 through 7, I have a feeling it will be joining its counterparts there very shortly.

Why? Simply put - I'm just more productive in VFP9 than I am in the other environments.

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