This article is directed at those GoldMine users who are still using the long discontinued GoldMine Standard Edition. GoldMine Standard Edition was discontinued in 2007 and was technically only supported on Windows XP and Windows Server 2000/2003 Servers, which have also been discontinued at this point.
Many GoldMine Standard Edition users have upgraded their computers over the years from Windows XP, to Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8 and have simply been able to move their existing GoldMine installations to these new computers by doing a simple Copy/Paste. By doing this they lost the ability to use some features/functionality in GoldMine due to it not being compatible with these newer Operating Systems. For many that was an acceptable trade-off as they were still able to use many of the other features of GoldMine in the manner in which they were before.
Windows 8.1 was recently released and Windows 10 is slated for release later this year. For anyone still using GoldMine Standard Edition and considering purchasing a new computer running Windows 8.1 or above, now is the time to make a decision about upgrading from GoldMine Standard Edition to GoldMine Premium Edition.
There are several compelling reasons why you should strongly consider upgrading now.
1. In order to upgrade from GoldMine 6.7 Standard Edition to the current version of GoldMine we need to make incremental upgrades to versions of GoldMine that were released after GoldMine 6.7 but before the most current version of GoldMine. Those versions of GoldMine can only be installed on Windows 7 or Windows 8 machines. So if you don’t have a Windows 7 or Windows 8 computer available we technically would be unable to upgrade your GoldMine. For many users this is becoming more of a reality as the years go by and users purchase new computers. If you are considering purchasing a new computer within the next year you need to consider purchasing a GoldMine upgrade as well, or else you may never be able to upgrade your GoldMine.
2. GoldMine single user licenses can now be purchased with no requirements for annual maintenance.
3. There is no guarantee that your GoldMine Standard Edition will work on Windows 10 when it is released.
4. GoldMine Premium Edition does NOT need to have the database maintenance performed that is regularly required by GoldMine Standard Edition.
5. There is no 2 Gig database size limit in GoldMine Premium Edition as there is in GoldMine Standard Edition. This is often an issue for users of GoldMine Standard Edition and effects the Mailbox table where they constantly have to delete old emails to stay below the 2 Gig file limit.
6. GoldMine Premium Edition can have automated/nightly backups of the SQL Database(s) setup and configured to have emails sent to you when SQL Database Backups are successful and/or when they fail.
7. Microsoft’s browser for Windows 10 won’t be Internet Explorer. GoldMine Standard Editions’ email client requires Internet Explorer in order to create and view emails. There is no guarantee that you will be able to continue to use GoldMine Standard Editions email client on Windows 10.
