Question about Family Tree Maker.

[FeeJay]

I have WDYTYA FTM. It's a few years old (for Windows98/ME/XP.) I need a new FTM as my new laptop uses Vista. I have lots of info entered into my existing FTM. I've seen the Ancestry FTM at a reasonable price at Costco and am considering buying it.

My question is: Will it be easy to transfer the WDYTYA FTM data to the Ancestry FTM? Or would I be better just buying the latest WDYTYA FTM?

The Ancestry FTM is cheaper than the other and offers twice as much free ancestry use (6months instead of three.)

FeeJay

[stonechat]

Hi

I am not sure which version of FTM yours equates to , but there has been fixes published for FTM for VIsta - are you sure that you can't do that?

Bob

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

The earliest WDYTYA versions of FTM were based on FTM 2005, later ones were based on FTM 2006, both versions will work with Vista but you need to download a patch to make the programme work.

Your version should be displayed in any family screen but If you want to check which version you have;
from the menu bar at the top of any family screen  click "help", from the dropdown menu click on "system information". This will then display which version (2005, 2006 or V16) you are using.



The first topic on the FTM helpcentre (Family Tree Maker update for Windows Vista) gives an explanation and link for downloading the patch.

The helpcentre main page can be found via the following link

http://pastftm.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/pastftm.cfg/php/enduser/std_alp.php

[downside]

The only thing to add is that if you do decide to get a more up-to-date version of FTM is that all you need to do is import your .FTW file into the new version of FTM and it will upgrade your file for you.