extortion

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C.D. Koger - 30 Jan 2007 22:10 GMT

My government's tax people have let me wrestle the whole of 2006 with giant
PDF's that could only be handled by recent Acrobat versions. They announced
that for 2007 they would require Acroreader 7.0 or higher, then took it back
after a downpoor of protests and provided their own 1.4 Mb software package
which I downloaded today.
But it refuses to install because of "O/S incompatibility". It requires
Win2000 or later!
And I refuse to leave Win98. Firstly I don't need anything else, secondly I
do not want to reinstall all my software packages again and thirdly there is
hardware like the ISDN adapter for which I have only Win98 drivers.
I tried booting from an XP CDrom but there is no option to leave the setup
program without installing the O/S.
Is there a way to make the software package believe the O/S is not W98? I
remember Dos had the setver command to fool programs..
Or is there a simple way to make a small partition with a minimal XP package
and boot from there once a month to fill out a tax form? I suspect that it
is only the installer having problems with W98 and that once installed, the
tax program will even run under W95 because it only handles some numbers (in
my case mainly zero's) and sends them to an internet site.

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MEB - 30 Jan 2007 22:26 GMT

Hey C.D., still having problems, eh. You could try a PE like Bart's but
you'd need XP or something like that to set it up.
Might look to one of the CDROM virtual Linux environments if you've got the
memory and a CDROM, and try one of the replacement PDF readers being used
therein. Not sure if they would help... typical of government though...

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| My government's tax people have let me wrestle the whole of 2006 with giant
| PDF's that could only be handled by recent Acrobat versions. They announced
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
| tax program will even run under W95 because it only handles some numbers (in
| my case mainly zero's) and sends them to an internet site.

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C.D. Koger - 31 Jan 2007 08:55 GMT

Sorry, I did not express myself correctly. The confrontation yesterday
evening with such arrogance and stupidity was a bit too much.
Instead of informing the tax payers that the Adobe solution for electronic
tax forms was a complete disaster, they kept silent about it until
yesterday.
Even the link they provide on the secure server looks like there is a PDF
waiting.
But they abandoned the whole principle.
Instead of a PDF there was an EXE waiting for download. After installation
under W2000, XP or Vista, the program will show a virtual tax form that must
be completed and digitally signed. It then calls the dialup adapter and
transmits only the entered data.
I am familiar with the principle because they use something similar for
other taxes since 2000. But since this is newly made, the software
developers used the latest tools and force you to switch O/S without any
real need.
The program will do nothing that Win98 cannot handle, it just rejects it,
that's why I use the word "extortion".
In what I call 'the old days' my machine politely asked if I wanted to boot
from DOS, DRM, Unix or whatever bootable partitions were available. It was a
standard feature from the DRM system builders kit. Does something like that
still exist?
I have a 5 Gb drive d: that is used for backup only, I could use that for
this purpose, but I doubt that XP will boot from d: without some outside
help.

Cornelis Koger

> Hey C.D., still having problems, eh. You could try a PE like Bart's but
> you'd need XP or something like that to set it up.
[quoted text clipped - 45 lines]
> (in
> | my case mainly zero's) and sends them to an internet site.

Reply to this Message

MEB - 31 Jan 2007 17:05 GMT

| Sorry, I did not express myself correctly. The confrontation yesterday
| evening with such arrogance and stupidity was a bit too much.
[quoted text clipped - 23 lines]
|
| Cornelis Koger

Ah, I see, so what you've indicated is that they likely used the newer
Windows installer or something along those lines.

Your dealing with the new younger programmers, who's entire life has been
under Windows and they think of little else. Most likely they've continued
to buy into the "planned" obsolencence of the computer world, and wouldn't
understand WHY anyone would not continue as they do. Think the younger
generation in general. Can they understand a world where you DON'T have a
phone in your pocket, a gaming machine in your other pocket, and your stereo
[with pirated music] plugged into your ears, or all of that AND Internet
access in one? Where satellites beam them what they want, AND track their
every movement?
NO. As far as their concerned, those who don't accept and use these things,
are dinosaurs left over from another age, mostly to be forgotten and
hopefully buried soon. Ah, but again I wax poetic ...

Did you check to make sure it wasn't "dot.net" material requiring Microsoft
version 1 or 2 installed [which can be installed in Win98SE]?
One would think they'd be intelligent enough to at least put it out in that
form, but then that would require they think "outside the box" and use their
brain for something other than consumerism and government/corporate control
of the plebs/masses.

IF it is dot.net, then be cautious, it can cause issues in the Win98SE
environment.

| > Hey C.D., still having problems, eh. You could try a PE like Bart's but
| > you'd need XP or something like that to set it up.
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
| >
| > --

Signature

| > MEB
| > _______________
[quoted text clipped - 32 lines]
| > (in
| > | my case mainly zero's) and sends them to an internet site.

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98 Guy - 30 Jan 2007 23:27 GMT

> PDF's that could only be handled by recent Acrobat versions.

Before you give up on those PDF's, make sure you've got the last
update for Acrobat reader version 6. It's quite possible that some
PDF's that claim to require version 7 can actually be read by the last
update to version 6.

Or try this:

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

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Jonny - 31 Jan 2007 11:49 GMT

> My government's tax people have let me wrestle the whole of 2006 with
> giant
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
> (in
> my case mainly zero's) and sends them to an internet site.

Similarly, the commonly used "TurboTax" for doing this last tax year
requires XP/Vista to work. It doesn't use a PDF format during the tax
interview or final phase. It does allow saving all filled out tax forms for
your records in pdf format for few years now.

Similarly, I choose to use that program in another XP install with firewall
and AV working. That's stashed as an image file waiting for restoration.
Am using a boot manager that isn't affected by this.

Whether to install XP in your case is questionable as you've not stated if
your PC meets the hardware requirements for both XP and running the unknown
tax software.

Most current commercial software writers are geared towards XP, and aren't
familiar or paid to write software installations that are retroactive to
work with and in prior windows versions. These are usually a separate setup
package.

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Jonny

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