Additional information before you buy ACT! 2005 and Brokers*ACT! for ACT! 2005:

There are some issues with ACT! 2005 that you should be aware of before you decide to purchase ACT! 2005 or our AddOn for ACT! 2005.

• What type of ACT! 2005 should you get - Full License vs. Upgrade License?
• Speed issues.
• Importing from ACT! 6.0x.
• Updating your current templates and reports.

Should you purchase a Full license for ACT! 2005 or should you simply Upgrade?

ACT! 2005 is not an upgrade... it is a completely new product! If you do not currently have an ACT! license, you will have to purchase the full license product. Sources for purchasing the ACT! 2005 product are listed below.

If you already have ACT! 6.0x on your machine, you can simply purchase the upgrade. HOWEVER, please read the following information.

Before you upgrade to ACT! 2005, there are some issues you should be familiar with.

When installing the upgrade, you will be given a choice as to what type of installation you wish to have. It is our suggestion (in the strongest possible way) to elect to install ACT! 2005 so as to be able to run both ACT! 2005 and ACT! 6.0x simultaneously. If you elect to have 'ALL YOUR DATA MIGRATED OVER TO ACT! 2005," you will NEVER be able to go back to ACT! 6.0x.

Well, not "NEVER." Actually, you can go back if you do the following:

1. Make a backup of your database prior to upgrading (we recommend that you retain this backup on a CDROM or flash memory stick, so it is separate from the machine). Make sure you do a complete backup.

2. Make a backup of your ACT! 6.0x installation file(s) unless you have the program on CDROM. Make note of your registration number.

3. After you installed ACT! 2005 and decide that you would rather have ACT! 6.0x, you have to uninstall ACT! 2005 and ACT! 6.0x, then delete any leftover files and directories.

4. Reinstall ACT! 6.0x.

5. Restore your database from the backup you created in step 1.

It would be much easier to simply install ACT! 2005 to run side-by-side with ACT! 6.0x by not selecting to migrate all your contact information over at the time of upgrade installation. Once you have decided that ACT! 2005 is what you want to use, you will be able to migrate each database over as desired.

We give our Brokers*ACT! users specific instructions on how to convert and migrate an existing Brokers*ACT! 6.0 database into the new Brokers*ACT! 7.0 database.

If you are not sure, simply download the 30 free trial from ACT! and see if ACT! 2005 is for you. Unfortunately, we do not have a trial version and all sales are final. So please make sure you wish to use ACT! 2005 before you purchase Brokers*ACT! 7.0.

NOTE: MJB Software does not sell the ACT! 2005 product. To purchase ACT! 2005, visit www.actaddons.com.

Speed Issues

ACT! 2005 is slower than ACT! 6.0x. This is a fact given the same system requirements suggested for both products. We suggest that you have a minimum of a Pentium 4 type processor with at least 1GB of RAM Memory (more is better). ACT! 2005 may run fine on your system when installed "out of the box," but add a few hundred contact and several hundred more fields, and you may see a significant slowdown. ACT! had indicated that it will be releasing updates to address the speed problems in the future. That has yet to be seen.

Importing from ACT! 6.0x

We have heard all sorts of problems about importing from ACT! 6.0x to ACT! 2005. Some people say they were successful in taking even a customized version of ACT! and getting it to convert to the ACT! 2005 platform. Others have experienced loss of data, notes, history, fields, etc.

Our suggestion is to PURCHASE the FULL license version of ACT! 2005 so you will always be able to use ACT! 6.0x if you are a current user. Second, we suggest you back up your 6.0x database and even make a copy of it on CDROM just to be sure. Compress and Index your 6.0x database. Then you should start ACT! 2005 and open the ACT! 6.0x database in question. ACT! 2005 will go through a series of tasks to convert the database to work with ACT! 2005.

Updating your ACT! 6.0x Letter Templates and Reports

We actually re-created all of our letter templates manually. Others have reported that the conversion process will work with the letters and reports. If you have added several customized letters and reports to ACT! 6.0x and/or Brokers*ACT! 6.0x, then you may wish to try the automatic conversion of these files. These would be converted under "Supplemental files" during the end of the conversion process.