Old newcomer writes- winUAE and IE

Hello everyone
first of all thanks to the enthusiasts who run sites like this and do all the work involved in making Amigas usable in today's environment.

I should say that as a parent with a busy working life that involves being on a PC all day and sometimes much of the night, I don't have a lot of spare time play with other computers. I'm not in "IT", I just use a computer as a tool in working with clients round the world, I'm interested in what it can do for me, not how it works!!!

However, like many here, I have an old A1200 with 6mb RAM and a HD and Cd drive. My kids and I have fond memories of that as our 1st (actually 2nd, traded a A500+ for it) computer and have been nagging me to get it going to work with our win98 PC. They still use it for SWOS, Monkey Island and Mini-arkanoids (!), and would like to use it for a homework computer and of course DPaint which PC has never really matched. I'd like to get some of my old Octamed Soundstudio-created stuff on PC or CD. And of course play some games we've either lost, traded or stopped working or are unobtainable now (Wizkid being their all time favourite).

To this end I bought Cloanto's Amiga Forever/WinUAE/Fellow CD a couple of years ago, but as I had a lot of hassle on the PC after installing I deleted it, not having much time to faff about with it.

Recently i decided to try again: I installed it the other night, and got a downloaded Bart vs Space mutants going from an .adf very quickly.

However, I am being remnded why I uninstalled it the last time:
IE6 has become unlaunchable from my PC desktop, my MS Office applications appear to be missing some vital ingredient to start, and I can't get Outlook Express to run at all.

I have tried the FAQs but didn't fnd anything on this.
Any ideas not requiring hours at the PC yet again would be gratefully received.
Do i need to download an upgrade?
If I do will it automotically upgrade WinUAE or will I need to go through further geek activities? Any simple straightforward (probably bad words to computer people, but the Amiga used to be so much better than the PC at this) way I can use both WinUAE and have my PC desktop un-interfered with?

Further questions:
I've seen some posters saying that I can just burn an ISO image to a PC CD, and then use it on the A1200. Is it really that simple and straightforward (sorry, those words again)?

The Amiga is upstairs, PC downstairs. That's the way I'd like to keep it. Would a Catweasel drive for the A1200 be the best simple and straightforward (sorry, those words again) way of transferring files between the two (i.e DPaint images for printing, ditto word-processing files, or soundtracker (Octamed) files), using a standard PC floppy?

we have a home network for my laptop, but i don't really want to mess with TCP/IP on the Amiga (unless it's simple and straightforward (sorry, those words again))

lastly:
Younger son woud like to use DPaint again, he was very good with it, and I have Adobe Photoshop which I see can handle Amiga images (supposedly). he complains that the old mouse is not very responsiv. can anyne recommend, from experience, a good replacement Amiga mouse or even graphics tablet, preferably plug 'n' play (which the Amiga used to be great at compared to PC), as I don't want to mess with drivers etc, unless it's simple and straightforward (sorry, those words again).

after-lastly:
any recommendations as to a good Amiga word-processor they could use for homework etc, bearing in mind they would then bring files to PC for printing or even conversion if they have to take the file to school

apologies for what must surely be repetitive or over-simple questions to some of you, but te answers to these could form a basis for another set of FAQs for folk like me....

thanks
Bren

[Paul]

To this end I bought Cloanto's Amiga Forever/WinUAE/Fellow CD a couple of years ago, but as I had a lot of hassle on the PC after installing I deleted it, not having much time to faff about with it.

Recently i decided to try again: I installed it the other night, and got a downloaded Bart vs Space mutants going from an .adf very quickly.

However, I am being remnded why I uninstalled it the last time:
IE6 has become unlaunchable from my PC desktop, my MS Office applications appear to be missing some vital ingredient to start, and I can't get Outlook Express to run at all.

Well I would uninstall Amiga Forever, then goto http://www.winuae.net and download the winuae and install, copy the kickstart roms form Amiga Forever CD into the winuae dir. Give that a try

I'll try that when I get home. Copy the Kickstart Roms? Is it "simple and straightforward (sorry, those words again)"? just drag them across?
Are you saying you have solved this problem before in this way, or just speculating that this might solve the problem?

thanks for taking the time to reply

[grassden]

Trying to put our Scottish character out to shame!!!??

Heck Im a Scotman but iv never been that simple <maybe a fool perhaps!! ;-> and also straightforwards with my steely eyes<perhaps when sober!>


Your a proper bonifide?<when im dead!!> scot!

P.S. im an Aberdeen supporter to boot!!!!

<laughs>

[LaundroMat]

WINuae.net will answer a lot of you're questions, but to answer your question on the Kickstart ROMs: after installing and starting WinUAE, you'll have to show the program where it can find the Amiga Kickstrat roms. These roms are the same as found on your Cloanto CD (as they're just a copy of the ROM found inside your Amiga).

So, yes, copy the roms from CD to PC hardrive, and show WinUAE where to find them.

[LaundroMat]

The Amiga is upstairs, PC downstairs. That's the way I'd like to keep it. Would a Catweasel drive for the A1200 be the best simple and straightforward (sorry, those words again) way of transferring files between the two (i.e DPaint images for printing, ditto word-processing files, or soundtracker (Octamed) files), using a standard PC floppy?

I don't know, but why don't you try using Cross-DOS first? Workbench can read PC formatted 880k (720k on PC i think) disks, using CrossDos.
And instead of investing in a Catweasel drive, perhaps you should consider hooking up your Amiga to a home LAN?

I was under the impression that DD disks were no longer obtainable and PC drives no longer supported them?

Thnks for all the advice, it's not that I can't be bothered, but I have very little spare time, and work away from home a lot so would like something that's fairly idiot-proof for my kids. It's those words "Simple and straightforward" again, which seem to be anathema to computer enthusiasts. (not you lot, you've been helpful. But those guys who say "RTFM" when the manual is written barely literate alien gobbledegook need a customer awareness course) When I looked at the instructions for setting up a LAN, they seemed anything but "S & S". Would a PC-Amiga LAN really be simpler and less problem prone than a drive which could read PC HD floppies?

Maybe I should take another look, but life is short.....