Dear C. Smith:
I also have been using Captools Individual since the early days when it was a DOS program. I made the conversion to Win based years ago and have been a very happy user for a very long time. I currently use it on my computers, one running Win XP home, the other XP Pro.
Under Windows it is a much more powerful and user friendly program. Over the years I've created many customized reports that make monitoring my financial life very simple. You simply have to sit down with the manual that came with the Win version (mine is a paperback with a silver cover) and work through it. As I recall, the data coversion is automated. Lots of trial and error involved. But, once you get everything set up the way you want it, it's a snap. I last update in the Fall of 2005 and am currently running version 1.75c.
Now for the bad news. I was looking around their web site the other day, and they have announced several things, all of which are bad for us individual users. Not only will they no longer support the Individual version, they in fact are abandoning totally the current Windows version with the latest upgrade, which is intended only for pro users. The cheapest version I can find on their web site has a license fee of $1000 per year. So, we are stuck with the most recent version.
Frankly, I've found over the years that each time I tried their newest upgrade via download, all it did was screw up my reports that I had worked so hard to format just the way I wanted. So, here is my advice:
Go to their web site ASAP while you can still download the most recent upgrade available and save it on your hard drive for possible future use. Then, master the current version you have. Then, in the future, as you upgrade to newer computers running Vista, think about keeping one of your old computers running Win XP around just for running Captools. They don't guarantee that the current version that we have will run on Vista, and I think the only way to know will be to eventually try running it under Vista and see what happens.
If you can stand being depressed, head over to their web site to see for yourself. They've essentially told us undividual users to go screw ourselves. I emailed them, including the company owner, and got that message loud and clear.
But, the upside is that once you master the Win version that you have, you will love it. My accountant want to pay me to teach his other clients how to use it. Tax time is a breeze for me.
All the best
Stewart