ACT 2008 Database Software Released, Review Available
Posted on August 21st, 2007 by Travis
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Today Sage Software released the ACT 2008 Software Product line. As a splash on 20 years of doing contact management, this latest release comes with a “Dashboard” giving users an at a glance view of key information in their database.
Take advantage of ACT 2008 promotional pricing through the end of August.
Want a complete review of ACT 2008? Visit http://www.WhatsNewWithACT.com to claim instant access.
Filed under: ACT Related
Downloaded the trial version of act 2008 and would not intsall on Vista (even after several attempts). Noticed late last week they had taken the download link off (Software problems?) and today Monday the link is back but does not work. Have you heard of any problems with Vista?
Many thanks,
Alan.
I just JUST purchased act 2007 (which was supposed to be bundled with my new desktop but wasn’t) and installed it only to find out it’s not compatible with Office 2007. The upgrade to 2008 costs as much as the new version of 2007 I just purchased (which I THOUGHT was the latest version). I’m hacked to say the least. When did 2008 version come out for crying out loud? I didn’t see any vendors with a 2008 version or I would have surely purchased it seeing as I have a vista system and office 2007.
Shaun-
Where did you purchase your version of the software? Perhaps you can go back to them and ask to return, or exchange it for the upgraded version? There may have been a special deal to get 2007 version with the ACT 2008 Software coming out.
Your situation is one of the reasons I think that this new release (ACT 2008 could create a decent amount of confusion. Be sure to read the fine print before purchasing.
Alan-
I have not heard of any problems installing on Vista yet. The download was pulled because apparently there was an issue with some corrupt dlls for the activity sync feature with Outlook. Not a huge issue, but obviously big enough.
It is possible that it did not install properly. If you try again, disable your anti-virus software. Also you might check the ACT support knowledge base for install issues on Vista.
-Travis
PS: For those who buy ACT 2008 software through me,
I’m including a special “from the
trenches” video to help customers
avoid installation blunders.
Hi Travis,
Have been through 2 hours of tech support with Sage and they come up with the same installation problem on my computer ,which at the moment is unresolved. Goes through the whole process and stops at the installation of IIS Virtual Root files and rolls back installation. Then comes up with an error message “Error 1603 Fatal Error during installation”. Act tech people couldn’t get past that after numerous attempts and will get back to me later (hopefully) with an answer.
Alan.
Alan-
Vista can be a bear to get the software installed. The great thing is what you share here will help others.
Some quick tips:
1.) Make sure the system is cleared of temp files
2.) Stop the Windows firewall service.
3.) Stop anti-virus
4.) Copy the CD to the local hard drive, and install from there.
While this blog isn’t intended to be a tech support blog, I want to help if I can. That said, I’m swamped with projects at the moment, and may not get back to the blog in a timely manner as I would like. Please post your findings here.
Travis,
I had the same exact experience (with Dell) as did Shaun Gleason within the last 2 weeks.
Why was ACT 2007 never made compatible with Outlook 2007 anyway? That just does not make any sense.
Dave
I did hear about this back in March, but thought Dell would have pulled this
promotion by now.
You can get ACT 2007 (non-premium) to work with Vista, just not with Office 2007. There is a patch to download if you haven’t already applied it.
There is an addon which enables Outlook 2007 with ACT 2007, but nothing that I know of to hook Word 2007 to ACT 2007.
I’m not a programmer, but my understanding is the way Office 2007 suite was programmed makes it extremely difficult for existing products to be compatible without rewriting a core element of the application. My understanding is that ACT 2008 was quite a programming effort to accommodate these changes.
Hope that helps.
I have had similar problems trying to download a trial version of ACT 2008, with Vista 64 bit. As the program launches an error message comes up “The type initializer for Protexis.[] threw an exception” . The program then shuts down. Any ideas or solutions?
Tony-
ACT does not yet support 64-bit. It is unclear when they will (last I spoke with them about it).
-Travis
I came here looking for non-Sage interpretation of ACT! 2007 vs. ACT! 2008. How is ACT! 2008? Still buggy? Did they get integration to Vista and Windows Mobile to work properly? Does it properly sync to Outlook finally? Does it cut history records when Word(2007) is your Word Processor finally?
Anyone using it - a synopsis would be really appreciated.
For the past 14 days since I received my ACT Premium 2008 (10.0) Ex Edition I have been on the phone fwith ACT Technical Support for almost 15 hours over and over again. No one has been able to get the Microsoft SQL Server to work with the new ACT. I still can’t get the new ACT to run.
I have a new HP Media Center PC with Vista factory installed. I have only installed Microsoft Office Professional and very few other programs.
Does anyone know if others have encountered this type problem, and if so, how it was solved.
H. Leon Raper
Has anyone gotten past the 1603 installation issue in Vista? I am having the exact same error and have double checked firewall, antivirus, authorities, etc. as described in the ACT knowledge base. Still no luck and I feel like I’m out $225 (bought the module to link with Quickbooks) . I have tried using ACT since version 6 at various times. While I think it is a very good application, I have yet in all this time have any version install easily.
(Shaun) I believe ACT has a 60 day satisfaction return policy. If you are within the 60 days, return the 2007 version and buy the 2008 version. I unfortunately bought 2007 a few months ago and am having some new challenges with Vista.
Solved the issue. I had to ensure that IIS was installed properly on the workstation. Oops.
However, on another note, anyone try to import existing data and history from Outbook Business Contact manager to ACT 2008?
Leon-
Due to the fact there there are multiple technologies required for a successful install (.Net 2.0, MS SQL, ACT itself), there can be several things that interfere with a successful install.
These things are not easily described here so I have created an install “From the Trenches” video, my best practices, which will be available for purchase soon. Those who purchase ACT 2008 software here will currently get the video as a bonus.
TJude-
Word 2007 is now supported, and works well.
Vista is also supported.
I haven’t yet tested with Windows Mobile.
What Outlook integration issue are you referring to? In ACT 2007 the primary issue was out of their hands for the most part.
You might be best to try it out first, and then decide if you want to purchase, be sure to test on a non production machine ACT 2008 software trial is here.
Others? Experiences?
Andrew-
Thanks for reporting back your installation resolution.
As for the import of Business Contact Manager, feel free to contact us via the HelpDesk and that we might explore your needs more thoroughly.
-Travis
Hi, I am new here. I used ACT 2.0 then 6.0 for years. A year ago I switched to Outlook. I have been lost ever since. Couldn’t find things like I did in ACT.
Just upgraded to V. 10 and I love it. Synced to my AT&T 8525 with no problem. I can find people and things once again. I am one happy camper.
John
John-
Welcome aboard…. There is nothing like a contact centric contact management software system.
-Travis
Was using Act 2006 quite well and then had to upgrade to Office 2007.
Act 2006 does not work with Office 2007. Purchased Act 2008; Absolute impossible to install. Been on phone with Act tech support for two days; …frustrated.
Hello, I am new here too. I was an avid ACT user (2000) - loved it. I have recommended ACT to many people & businesses over the years. I have not used my old ACT 2000 for a few years as I was out of the work force for a bit. Now I am ready for a new laptop and a new version of ACT & am excited to start from scratch. Then I saw all the concerns. Vista vs XP? If Vista, is ACT 2008 going to work? With Word? With Outlook? Since I haven’t bought anything yet - any suggestions? should I wait?
-Jamie
Jamie-
Welcome Jamie! I’m assuming you are starting from scratch (not migrating v 6 or prior). If so, you have an advantage of focusing on getting started as oppose to also bringing data forward. As for Vista, I have it running on Vista with no issues.
If you still need to purchase the ACT! by Sage 2008 software at a good price, I include a from the trenches installation video, my best practices for all new customers. There is a special portion of the video dedicated to installing (as well as uninstalling previous versions of ACT) ACT 2008 on Windows Vista.
You may find the learning curve to be less than a new user, as you likely learned the concepts from the ACT 2000 days. The sooner you get started the sooner you’ll have a leg up.
Regards,
Travis
Jim-
Sounds like you are unhappy (had to edit your post to make it family friendly).
For those who want to stick with ACT 2006 and also upgrade to Office 2007, it won’t support mail merging to Word 2007, but will support merging to the ACT word processor.
For those interested in Outlook 2007 Email integration with ACT 2005-2007, check out the video in this post.
I saw one of the answers above in regards and i wanted to know if someone had an update. We have MS Vista ultimate - 64 bit OS on our computers and we are having trouble installing ACT 10.0 on it (we get the following error: “the type initializer for Protexis threw an exception”). What is the solution for this problem? Thanks.
I’ve had the same protexis problem using windows xp media center.
Program will not open. Also I cannot uninstall ACT 2008
Protexis error generally points to 64 bit processor. It will not work, in fact there are a lot of 32 bit applications that have problems with 64 bit (ACT 2008 included). Be sure to verify your software will on the computer before purchasing a new computer.
Hope that helps,
Travis
Error 1603 to fix it I did two things:
disable the High Security Internet Explorer Browser feature (Add/remove components/Windows Components)
Make sure that the www publishing service is running, (right-click my computer>manage>services)
Hope this works for somone else’s headaches…
I’m currently using ACT 6.0 very nicely for a one person business, on Windows XP Professional. Going to be starting a new business and will likely create a new ACT database. Considering updating to a new computer, probably to Vista. Also thinking of getting a simple handheld, like Palm z22. Any reason I shouldn’t just keep using ACT 6.0 ? Is there software to sync ACT 6.0 to the Palm OS?
Jack-
Good questions, and example to us all who are considering upgrading a major business application like ACT.
Let me give you some straight facts…
1.) Many people are not finding Windows Vista to be the best choice for an upgrade. The operating system is more security conscious, which is great, however, in the default mode it prompts to run applications, or has application restrictions so that apps won’t run without the proper user rights.
2.) ACT 6 is no longer supported (since Nov 2006). And it was never designed to run on Vista. That said, while I have seen it working, I advise against running ACT 6 on Vista. This means that if you have an issue with a database running under ACT 6, Sage doesn’t have folks on staff to help you.
As a business minded person, I’m not a big fan of running unsupported software.
As it is with any handheld device, you want to make sure that your vendor supports sync to that device. Check the ACT website to find out what handhelds they support.
I’m commonly recommending CompanionLink software. It is under $50, and saves a lot of headaches. Even works with the iPhone.
If you choose to purchase the act software you might want to establish a relationship with an act consultant to help you with the installation and data conversion from ACT 6 to the latest ACT software.
Hope that helps…
am in a quandry and have wasted many hours and some money (for a tech) to this point. Trying to load Act 2007…so I can use the ACt for Palm with my new palm Tungsten E2. UGGH! I would happily say “uncle” at this point. However years of ACT database are now stuck in my computer. I must have dispatched my old ACt (2004) to the trash, so am unable to open said databases even for the purpose of conversion. any suggestions are welcome. Of course, this whole process has drained valuable time from my productivity….Isnt that ACT’s reason for being?
help me please having same problems with 2008 and vista 2008 it is not installing properly (post edited).
Gail-
Your comment is timely…. yes ACT software is suppose to contribute to productivity gains…the problem is technology can sometimes get in the way!
A couple items come to mind… (I share these for others to benefit from your experience as well):
1.) Always backup your system and database before upgrading.
2.) If you need to get to your data right away, consider restoring from backup to another system until you get your current system fixed.
3.) Test the migration first…make sure it works properly. (note: it won’t always give an error if there are issues).
4.) I recommend using this tool to sync ACT databases to handheld devices. Saves time and frustration.
5.) If you are still struggling, don’t go to ACT support, consider hiring an ACT Certified Consultant. Make sure they have experience converting a v6 database to the version you are upgrading to.
You might also benefit from the following posts…
Considering Upgrading ACT software?
Part 1: What about all those horrible reviews?
Part 2: What about all those horrible reviews?
Hope that helps…
We have just upgraded to Vista operating system, and have installed Office 2007 and ACT! 2008.
We migrated our contact records and noticed that instead of transferring and showing our “Subject” line on emails, it is now showing the file path where the record is stored. Is it possible to migrate/import the “Subject” text of emails from our 2003 ACT database into our 2008 ACT database and display it on the History tab or any other tab?
Displaying a file path is useless when we’re trying to quickly locate an old communication to a client when we used to be able to scan all the subject lines…
Thanks!
I just spoke today with a Sales Rep from Sage software. He told me that I was the first person who had asked for a 64 bit version of Act to install on a x64 install of Windows 2003 Server. Obviously he was mistaken. He also stated that we may not see an x64 version anytime this year. Perhaps ver 11????? I would like to know if anyone can actually purchase 32 bit proc’s anymore. I even went so far to install my own copy of SQL 2005 Standard onto my server. Once again, Sage seems to ignore the very existing products that they are going to install when installing their products and for yet another installation copy of SQL down the installers throats.
Microsoft already has x64 SQL, why Sage can’t use that without mucking it up is also beyond me. I have a customer that is ready to spend $20,000 on Act if Sage can get their “act” together.
Alas, what I may end up doing is putting vmware or MS Virtual server on this wonderful new x64 server and running Act virtually. But we keep playing the waiting game for Sage to see that is actually financially viable to create a true 64 bit application (or even one that will run in a 32 bit emulation mode)
Come on Sage, step up and show some progressive thinking and march forward, not in reverse.
Thank you.
Gailand.
Gailand-
You bring up a great point. ACT 2008 doesn’t support any 64bit flavors of Windows. While I don’t work for Sage, and don’t claim to have a special inside scoop. I’m fairly confident in saying that 64 bit support won’t come until ACT 2009 (version 11). Anyone from Sage who can speak otherwise, please post it here…
It is important that when you purchase a new computer you consider the implication on all your applications. I talk about this in more detail on this blog
post about upgrading ACT software.
Jenna-
Hard to troubleshoot, and I generally don’t like to get super technical on this blog, so I hope I don’t disappoint…
Try this, make sure you are logged in with local administrator rights to the workstation, or elevate your permissions in Vista prior to installing.
-Travis
Hello Travis,
I’m new to this site. I am trying to install ACT 2007 on a Windows XP. I, too, am coming up with error 1603. It actually starts as error 1713 during the generating script operations for action install. Then I get the 1603. I can not find any help on the error 1713 and I’ve tried all the suggestions above for the error 1603 (except for Michael’s from Nov 16th because I can’t find anything named www publishing service). What do you think I should do?
Beka-
Welcome to the site!
As stated in other places, I don’t like to dive too technical on this site because anyones system can be so much different than the next. There are too many variables.
That said, I feel your pain :-)…
Two areas I would check out if I were you:
1.) Uninstall the software, and then make sure you run the cleanup utility at the Microsoft website…
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290301
2.) Look and see if .Net 3.0/3.5 is installed in Add/Remove Programs. Remove it prior to installing ACT!. However, make sure you know if there are any apps installed that require that version of .net. I ran into a big issue with .net compatibility issues recently, and will be checking this out before each install from now on.
These issues can be messy. Be sure you cleanup your system of any viruses and malware…
Hope that helps.
How do I set up Act 2008 to send and receive email? I went through the wizard, composed emails and they are sitting in the outbox.
Help!!
Hi, Travis — Could you please respond to my January 4 inquiry…we still have not resolved this issue. Thanks!!
Patty-
My apologies, I’ve not been as diligent with the blog as I would like due to a large influx of customer requests/projects.
I would love to see a screenshot of your example. It sounds like the database was not properly prepped for migration, and there may be some corruption. It is common to have corruption in legacy versions of ACT, SQL is not as corruption tolerant.
OR, you opted to import attachments as shortcuts, and they updated the description header with the file path.
If you haven’t already done so, you might try giving ACT support a call, or contacting a local ACT consultant.
If you can reply and include a link to a (small) screenshot of the area of concern.
Hope that helps.
Bernie,
If you setup ACT email integration with outlook, outlook must be open in order to send the messages.
If you want to relieve the headaches of ACT and Outlook integration, have a look at this ACT Addon.
I have been using ACT since V1.1. The company I work for purchased v10 for 15 of us, and in January I converted from v6 to v10. The installation and file conversions went fairly smoothly. Let me say that as much as I have promoted ACT in the past, I cannot recommend this version to anybody. It’s a mess! Editing is more difficult, layouts are hard to change, the program is slow and freezes up, and now the calendar has become unusable. Fortunately, only one other person here has converted from v6, and he doesn’t use it much. If I wouldn’t lose three month’s worth of data I’d go back to v6. Want to see the whole list of problems? Drop me an email and I’ll send you a Word document.
Vic
I downloade a trial of ACT 2008. Now I want to insatall ACT 2006 and I am told : We have detected an unsupported ACT7 instance of Microfoft SQL server 2000. Please uninstall.
Can you help.
Thanks
John-
ACT 2008 uses a newer version of SQL, so you need to uninstall ACT 2008 and SQL, prior to installing ACT 2006.
Vic-
Hey thanks for your feedback, sorry it has been a rough move for you.
To be fair, I would ask what level of training was given you when it came to installing, preparing for migration, and training on the new version? What I commonly find is that users just went forward with the upgrade without much planning (cause that is how it has always been done), only to run into issues and frustrations. Too bad software isn’t as simple as it used to be.
Sounds like your installation needs to be performance optimized. The good thing is your data is in a supported environment, as anything older than ACT 2005 is no longer supported.
You might consider getting with an ACT Certified Consultant in your area to help you make it a smoother transition. If you are on a tight budget, you might consider purchasing a support plan from ACT.
Hope that helps (at least a little).
ugh, downloaded act 2008 and now I cannot open outlook 2007, uninstalled 08 and am now trying to figure out what I can do to make them work together
Dave-
Make sure you have the latest patches on your system, for Outlook, and the latest version of ACT! for the install. This is the most common reason when people have conflicts like the one you describe.
Hope that helps.