Subject: chinese window 3.0 and other softwares

From: Ping-Yi Chu <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1992 23:09:00 PDT

As more and more window softwares come out, it seems that problem of
compatibility between them and Chinese window 3.0 becomes more serious.
Does  anyone know how to deal with these problems? Or does anyone know
whether microsoft has plan to deal with these problems or not?
I got a demo from a software called Spring (ch'uan-yuan) which is produced
in Germany. It has several Chinese fonts and it seems to be able to deal
with complicated wordprocessing such as make footnotes. However, it is very
expensive. Does anyone know more information about it?
I appreciate your answer. Thanks.

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From: Avron Boretz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1992 18:31:08 -0400

CWIN 3.0 out of the box does have some compatibility problems, chiefly related
to OLE (Object Linking and Embedding).  These can almost all be solved by
installing the new drivers and patches provided by MS-Taiwan (WDL, or Windows
Driver Library).  It is available free from MS-Taiwan (if you need their
address, etc., let me know).  I had a number of problems with Winword 2.0
(wouldn't print) and Norton Desktop for Windows (wouldn't install properly)
but all were solved with the new drivers/patches.  I have not had any serious
or unusual problems with any new programs, either commercial or shareware,
since then, although Windows 3.0 is not a terribly stable operating environ-
ment however you slice it, so UAE's ("Unrecoverable Application Errors") are
all-but-inevitable.  The US version of Windows 3.1 supposedly solves many of
these problems, and we are anxiously awaiting the promised release of CWIN 3.1.
However, I have not been able to get a straight answer out of the folks in
Taipei as to when it is due out.  The possibilities for the 32-bit WindowsNT,
which will utilize Unicode, and Desqview/X, which allows Xwindows networking and
graphics interface on a PC, also offer possibilities that are more promising
than the current CWIN 3.0, but at the moment that's what we've got.
I don't know anything about this German program you mentioned, though I'm
interested to find out anything anyone might know about it...???  However,
for me the real problem with CWIN 3.0 is its lack of a good entry system --
it only comes with "Tsang-jie" and the standard ET-keyboard mapped version of
the bo-po-mo-fo entry system, neither of which are intuitive to English key-
board users.  I suggested some time ago to MS-Taiwan that they write a pinyin
entry file, at least, but their response was simply that none existed...

Hope there's something of interest or use to you (and anyone else) here --
I'd like to hear from others using CWIN 3.0 --
Avron Boretz

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From: "Avron Boretz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 92 01:22:26 -0400

Interesting.  I was not aware that there was a separate product called CWIN,
so I was using the abbreviation in ignorance.  I *was* talking about the 
Taiwan product developed by Microsoft Taiwan.  There is another Taiwan-
developed product, a program which you install on top of the standard US
version of Windows 3.0 -- could this be the so-called CWIN?  I would be 
surprised if a US company would invest its time and $$ in a Chinese version of
Windows.  I have seen that product, and it's not bad, though ultimately more
cumbersome and (I would guess) more prone to compatibility problems than the 
program written by Microsoft itself.  Please do let me know (for the sake of 
pure research!) if this is CWIN.  Thanks!

Avron