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              Maintain 2.0 ReadMe.TXT File
			  
		Copyright 1995, 1997 by Richard A. Frazier
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It is strongly recommended that you read this document completely
before downloading.  Please give the Installation section below
special attention.
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Introduction

Maintain 2.0 is a 32 bit home inventory maintenance tracking shareware
application written for the Microsoft Windows 95 operating system.  The
application provides the following:

1. Home Inventory
   The application can be used to store information about your automobiles,
   electronics, home, etc. which can be beneficial for insurance claims or
   police reports.  The application stores serial numbers, purchase price, 
   date purchased, where purchased, insurance data, etc.
   
2. Maintenance / Repair History
   The application can track maintenance and repair data for each item in 
   the inventory.  The application tracks dates, costs, vendors and mileage
   where applicable.
   
3. Vehicle Fuel Economy
   Maintain can track your vehicles' fuel economy.  
   
4. Vendor Addresses / Numbers
   Store the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the companies you have 
   purchased items from or who have performed maintenance and repairs for you.
   
5. Scheduled Maintenance
   Maintain can keep track of future maintenance for you.  Maintain's calendar 
   feature allows you to view a month's maintenance data at a glance.  
   Maintain's companion program, Watchman (included), runs from the Windows
   Startup folder each time you start your computer.  Watchman checks your
   data base and notifies you of pending maintenance.
   
6. Vehicle / Equipment Usage Tracking
   Maintain can track your vehicles and equipment's average usage in miles, 
   kilometers or hours per day, week, month or year.  Watchman can
   automatically update this average based upon maintenance and fuel
   data which you have entered.  Watchman can also estimate and update an
   item's total usage if desired.
   
7. Repetitive Maintenance
   Maintain allows you to specify "repetitive maintenance".  Repetitive
   maintenance is maintenance performed on a preset interval
   (time and/or usage).  For example, you could specify that oil changes
   were to be performed every 4,000 miles or 4 months.  Or you could
   specify that furnace filters in your home should be replaced every 
   6 months.  When a repetitive maintenance item is marked as "completed",
   Maintain will automatically re-schedule the maintenance for you.

8. Insurance Data
   Maintain can store data concerning the insurance policies which cover
   items in the inventory.  The application allows you to 'link' each 
   item in the inventory to an insurance policy.  Maintain can also store
   data related to insurance claims.  It will also allow you to 'link'
   repairs to an insurance claim.
   
9. Reports
   Maintain has a number of pre-defined reports built into the application.
   Because the data is stored in a Paradox data base (Borland),
   custom reports can be designed using a number of report writing tools.
   
10 Import / Export Feature
   Maintain can import data from ASCII (text) files.  If you have been 
   saving inventory / maintenance data in another application you can 
   import this data directly into Maintain by exporting the data from
   that application to text files and then importing the data into
   Maintain.  Note a MS Word document is provided which will show you the
   format your data will have to be in to be imported.
   
   Maintain can also export data to text files which can be imported 
   into other applications such as a spreadsheet.

   

System Requirements

If your system can run Windows 95 it should be able to run Maintain.
The slowest PC I have ran the application on was a 66 MHz 486 and
it was sufficient.

Although Maintain should run under Windows NT, it has never been
tested under this operating system.  Proceed at your own risk.

Hard drive requirements:
   Program files:	1.89 Mb
   Data Files:		1.74 Mb <- Average size data base.  This directory
   							   can grow !
   Documentation:	119 Kb



Installation

Depending from where you download Maintain, you will get one of two
formats:

Maint200.zip
The Maint200.zip (approx. 8.5 Mb) is the entire installation package
in a single zip file.  Extract (unzip) the file to a temporary 
sub-directory and run startup.exe.


Multiple file download
This version of the installation package is made up of seven (7)
1.44 Mb diskettes not including this file (readme.txt).

You must download all seven.  Each disk image is zipped to speed up 
downloading.  The last digit of the file name indicates the disk 
number.  The name, maint200d4, indicates that this is the 4th disk
for Maintain 2.00.  You may want to extract each file to a diskette
or you can extract all seven to a temporary directory on your
computer.


Running the Install Program
The installation procedure is very straight forward with
two (2) exceptions.  You must install the program in the default
directory, c:\program files\maintain.  Due to limitations of the
report tool, the data files must be in c:\program files\maintain\data.

After the installation is complete you will have to create a shortcut
to the Watchman application in the Windows StartUp Folder yourself.  
The installation tool did not support this feature.  If you leave your
computer on all of the time you can use a scheduling program like
Microsoft System Agent which is included with Microsoft Plus to run
Watchman instead of placing a shortcut in the startup folder.
I would recommend scheduling Watchman to run at night.
See the Introduction section above for details about Watchman.

The installation program supports a Typical, a Custom and a Minimum
installation.  Most users should use the Typical installation.
The Minimum installation will save you some disk space but not much.
Maintain 1.x users should use the Custom installation so that they can
install the Data Conversion tool.  Note that this tool is only of use
to Maintain 1.x users.


Invalid filename error

If after installing Maintain, you encounter this error you will need to 
install the Borland Data Base Engine patch which is included on the 
installation disks.  You DO NOT have to uninstall Maintain first.  Run 
the Maintain Installation Program again.  This time select the Custom 
Installation.  Uncheck all options except the Borland Patch option.  
This will copy the patch to a subdirectory c:\program files\maintain\
borland patch.  The patch is a zip file which will have to be unzipped.
You will then have to run its setup.exe program to install the patch.

The patch is necessary to fix a compatibility problem with Data Base
Engine and newer versions of Microsoft Windows 95.  I would recommend
trying to run Maintain without the patch first.


Documentation

The typical installation installs Maintain document files to 
directory, c:\program files\maintain\docs.  The files are in MS
Word format.


Uninstalling Maintain

From the Windows Control Panel, select the Add/Remove Programs icon.
From the list of applications, select Maintain and then click the 
Remove button.  Note that the uninstall program leaves some files 
behind.  You can delete these from the Explorer.  The files in 
question are in directories

c:\program files\maintain
c:\programs files\borland 	<- If you have Borland products installed
   							   you may not want to delete this 
							   directory.  The install program does
							   copy some Borland DLLs to this 
							   directory.  If you don't have any 
							   Borland products on your system then
							   these files likely are no longer 
							   needed.

							   
							   
Registration

Maintain is a shareware application.  The concept of shareware is simple.
You can try it first and then only pay for it if you want to keep it.
You can use Maintain for sixty (60) days without purchasing it.  At the 
end of the sixty day evaluation period, some features of the application
will become disabled (data is NOT deleted).  

The registration fee is $35 (U.S. Dollars).  Payment in the form of a 
check is preferred (No credit cards please).  Along with your check, 
please send your name, address and your e-mail address (see the
Registration form provided in the On-line Help).  The registration 
number will be sent to the e-mail address.  The registration number can
be entered from the application's Help About dialog.  The registration 
number can be entered after the evaluation period has expired.



Distribution

Maintain may be freely distributed as long as it is distributed in
its entirety.  Distribution of the registration number is illegal.


Contacting the Author

The registration form and fee should be mailed to:

Richard Frazier
P.O. Box 810
Powder Springs, GA 30127

Comments and questions can be sent via e-mail to raf@america.net.
