Using a CD with Wine means navigating the disk from the Ubuntu desktop
using Nautilus and finding the appropriate installation file, usually setup.exe,
but not always. You can't always count of the CD to auto open as in Windows.

Wine also has different "bottles" to experiment with. I guess it is a play on
the name, Wine. There is the Win98 bottle, Win2000 bottle, etc. You may get
better results with using the appropriate one for your vintage programme. Good
luck in finding what you need.

What level of education are you involved in? I was a teacher for 30 years.

Using a CD with Wine means navigating the disk from the Ubuntu desktop
using Nautilus and finding the appropriate installation file, usually setup.exe,
but not always. You can't always count of the CD to auto open as in Windows.
As i recall i managed to get that far but somehow the CD seemed to
lock up and it couldn't install files.

> Wine also has different "bottles" to experiment with. I guess it is a play on
the name, Wine. There is the Win98 bottle, Win2000 bottle, etc. You may get
better results with using the appropriate one for your vintage programme. Good
luck in finding what you need.
I chose the win98 i remember. But then with new releases i reckoned it
wasn't worth it. I've decided on being an April updater with ubuntu.
Annually i reckon is about right to keep up with advances but not too
frequent with setting everything up again. I keep all data on remote
drive now. I found dual booting wasn't that bad with a second hard
drive as slave containing winblows. That way i just install the new
ubuntu release to the master and it sets up grub appropriately. I'll
try wine again on my spare machine shortly. Xmind is pretty good from
what i've done so far today - thanks.

> What level of education are you involved in? I was a teacher for 30 years.
Well i was an engineer in the oil industry when i graduated with an
engineering degree. When the industry took a 'nose dive' i went into
teaching first in a college, and then into schools to teach maths.
Thoroughly enjoyed it and when my father died in 2007 i went to look
after my mother who has Alzheimers. I had an idea for online maths
tuition and got interested in linux with a view to setting up a
business. But my mother takes up so much time i don't really spend
enough time getting it going.

My four legged friends keep me busy too
i93.photobucket.com/.../150308-16a.jpg
i93.photobucket.com/.../120308-7a.jpg

Annually isn't a bad update plan.
You could setup Linux to use 2 seperate partitions, one for / (root) and
one for /home.
If you do it at least this way, of course you want a swap partition, you
can just install the new version fresh and not lose your settings and
files that should be saved in your home partition. This of course as
long as you don't reformat the /home partition.

The way I have my system setup I have a 300GB harddrive, roughly 512mb
for swap (which I really don't need cause I have 2GB of ram), 100GB for
/, 100GB for /home and the rest for storage.
When I update I use a fresh install setting up the partitioning manually
when it asks and only formatting the / partition and telling gparted
where my /home and swap are mounted.

That's the way many recommend i believe. I did try it and managed to
delete a partition. I decided it was better for me! to use one of my
smaller disks [20gb or so] as a system disk and keep all data on
remote drive. I found an installation was quite quick, setting up
one's favourite apps again takes longer, backing up and sorting out
files of music etc takes longer.

Annual April updates i reckon was best if one looks at the history of
ubuntu so far. They make effort for the LTS version in April. In
October they do some improvements but there seem to be some glitches -
6.10 and 7.10 were not so good. The April version tends to have some
ideas revised/improved. 7.04 and 8.04 were the most stable i gather.
Ubuntu project runs at a loss i heard and i think 6 month updates is
rather optimistic. Making hard work for themselves i feel and an
annual version well tested and developed i can't help feeling would be
more in their interests.

Props to you for looking after your mother. Mine is in good health, knock
on wood, and relatively young. My mother-in-law, sadly, needs care but has an
extra measure of stubbornness and independence. It will take another fall or two
before she comes to her senses and sees the need for help. As the song says, "I
want to die before I get old."

Your dogs are cute. Are they rescued?

Yes. I knew a family who had three and found out after racing how many
were just put down. My sister used to be a veterinary nurse and they
had to put down a dozen one morning. I was brought up with dogs and i
vowed to give a greyhound a home when i could be around during the
day.

Suzi was one who then turned out not to be able to cope alone - Xmas
2007 with my brother's three Whippets made an impression. Wouldn't
walk anywhere when we got back and i had to take her for walks with a
friend's dog. So a companion was required and Zak was the result -
Lurcher [Whippet/Irish Terrier] from a dog's home. It can happen with
greyhounds - they are kept in their litters through their racing
careers and some can't get used to being alone. Zak is a very
different dog from Suzi - for poaching a sighthound with its speed and
agility is crossed with a working dog [Collie or terrier] resulting in
an intelligent and highly obedient working dog.