Digital Workshop

I think I probably know the answer to this but here goes anyway... The kit running an old Illuminatus 3 publication has died and we've had to replace it. Amazingly the publication still works OK on a recycled office box running XP but there are a few inaccuracies in the text which it would be helpful to update. Until I can find the time to rewrite the whole thing, is there any way that I can get it into Opus Pro XE 5 without starting from scratch? I've tried installing Illuminatus 3 on XP (yes, I still have the installation disk!) but it didn't seem very happy and the installer didn't close properly. It did run and I was able to edit the publication - I have all the original resources - but it wouldn't compile properly, there were error messages relating to animations. I expect the advice will be - start again in Opus but if there is a quick-fix alternative I'd be glad to hear it.

Alan,
re: installing Illuminatus 3 on XP
Do you recall that WinXP has a way to set a program to run in "Windows 98 compatibility mode"?
After installing, find at least the main program .exe and edit its Properties. Somewhere in there is a checkbox option to set that compatibility.

If your Pub is at all complex, using audio and video... you may have to find older codecs and perhaps roll-back or try different device drivers. Font availability may have changed too, but less likely a serious issue.

BTW, for the above we're talking mainly about the Editor and workspace and publishing... not running the finished Pub, right?

Does Illuminatus have the back-up feature that will put the .ILM and resource files in a Zip folder? If so, try that. Then bring the Zip folder over to the XP machine, unzip it and try opening it with your v5.5XE.

Hi Alan,

I'm looking at something similar at the moment. Send me an email and I'll see what I can do.

Mack

It does consolidate all the resources but Opus Pro doesn't seem to want to know about the .ILM file

For simple images and slideshow, I doubt codec is an issue.

On the rest, I'll defer to those who have been hands-on with that legendary workhorse.

Thanks for the responses which helped me formulate a plan! I have finally managed to get the publication into Opus Pro 5 by the circuitous route of finding an old Windows 98 machine, then installing Illuminatus 4 and an early (2001) vintage copy of Opus on it. I opened the Illuminatus 3 (*.MPB) publication successfully in version 4 and was then able to save it in the later (*.IMP) file format. The early Opus opened this successfully and I again saved the file after being warned that is would be subject to some irreversible changes. After a slight battle to get a USB stick to work with Win 98 (sigh) I was able to transfer the .ILM file and open it in my current version of Opus. I think I'm still ahead of where I would be if I'd tried to start again from scratch, though I still have some tidying up to do!