Simply Accounting 2008 - crashes after activation

[Mango]

I've posted this on Sage's official forum but thought I'd post here as well in case some very kind person here can help me out.

In March I bought a copy of Simply Accounting 2008, Standard Edition. I'd used the trial for quite a while with great success, and finally activated my software. It promptly quit working. When I try to load any data file, even the test company, it gets as far as "Verifying database..." and then brings up an error that says "Simply Accounting by Sage 2008 has encountered a problem and needs to close."

So far, I have tried the following with no success:

* Attempted the solutions listed in the Knowledgebase under Answer ID 22393 and Answer ID 21968.
* Reinstalled Simply outside of the C:\Program Files folder.
* Uninstalled (not just disabled) my firewall and antivirus.
* Tried activating with and without Release B.
* Formatted and reinstalled Windows XP.
* Installed SA on a different computer running Windows 2000.

When the error occurs, an item appears in Event viewer which states: "Faulting application simplyaccounting.exe, version 15.0.0.2, stamp 476214f6, faulting module msvcr80.dll, version 8.0.50727.1433, stamp 471eb5ae, debug? 0, fault address 0x00012f4b." This error is identical on both the Windows XP and 2000 systems.

I've spoken with about five technicians at Sage, over three levels of support, and stumped every one of them. They claim that though they have seen similar issues, they have never seen this exact issue. They have given me a copy of Simply 2007 for free, but this would require re-entering lots of data as I unfortunately used the trial for quite a while.

Has anyone here seen this before? I'd really appreciate a pointer in the right direction.

Thanks very much,
Mango

[roban]

Since the error concerns msvcr80.dll make sure it's in your windows/system32 folder and that it's the latest version. Start your computer in safe mode, rename msvcr80.dll to msvcr80old.dll and replace it with a fresh copy.

Update your NET Framework to the latest version.

You can download msvcr80.dll here: http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dl....shtml?msvcr80

[Mango]

Thanks to Roban, I was able to view a different error message!

I downloaded msvcr80.dll from the site he suggested. I put it in the \system32 folder but had no success. Then I searched my hard drive for the file and discovered it in many locations. I renamed each one individually to find which one Simply was using. I replaced it with Roban's version of the file.

I was able to view a new error message, which was much more helpful, and told me that my key code was incorrect. I found this odd, as when I installed, it was accepted. I did take a second look at my key code and noticed that the first few numbers were identical to the first few numbers of my serial number, except for one digit. I reinstalled with the adjusted key code and it worked perfectly! So that's all the problem was all this time!

Well, I am a software designer myself and all I can say is if I wrote software this poor, I would be fired!

-Mango

[roban]

[or_josh]

I downloaded msvcr80.dll from the site he suggested. I put it in the \system32 folder but had no success. Then I searched my hard drive for the file and discovered it in many locations. I renamed each one individually to find which one Simply was using. I replaced it with Roban's version of the file.

...and I thought Linux was "hard to use"!!

Now, the question is, do all of the features in all of your other programs that use those other versions of msvcr80.dll still work right? Or do they depend on "unpublished features" that were deprecated with the new version you installed?

[marc77]

Now, the question is, do all of the features in all of your other programs that use those other versions of msvcr80.dll still work right?

I think that no one can answer this question for sure...

My personal experience with Sage is poor. We used GS-EAR for bookkeeping (likely it was marketed under this name only in Germany). While it was advertised to work under the Windows emulation of OS X, it didn't; and I also can remember that we had trouble with a .dll file on a Win XP machine. This and the poor support (around three days till a reply arrived), made us to look for an alternative.

Anyway, it's now over three years ago; so it may or may not say something about the current Sage software sold.

However as developing software of my own, I get headache when a software depends upon any third party .dll file or Windows extension (.NET framework, for example). This is quite risky due to different versions installed or lack of it overall (and I won't responsible in such case to troubleshoot that ;-)

So maybe you should consider this as a warning sign and say "goodbye" to Sage...