FTM 2012 Surprises?!?
Well it has been a bit more than a month, now. I am still using Family Tree Maker 2012; but I must admit that a LOT of the luster and shine has worn off. My initial enthusiasm and excitement has been significantly enhanced with personal experience and tribulations.
As you may or may not know, in my day job I am a engineering process improvement consultant. And, my greatest area of involvement, dare I say strength, is software engineering, design and implementation. Simply stated, I worry about making it possible for engineering endeavors to be implemented successfully, reliably and predictably.
Enough for the advert (you may read more on another site of mine if you like)– now back to Family Tree Maker 2012.
Sadly I must report to you that the 2012 version of FTM software is astonishingly buggy and unstable. The most bizarre encounter I have experienced thus far involves a required upgrade patch, one without any identifier, that causes the software to become totally non-functional even “invisible”. No error messages, no warnings. The patched version of FTM2012 simply ceases to function without leaving a trace; the desktop icons are there, you simply click and nothing. If this were open source software, a solution would be discoverable; but sadly such is not the case with FTM. I have scoured ancestry.com and the web only to find that others have experienced similar joys and similar success to mine in finding answers. In other words, there’s a lot of web ranting about FTM 2012 to be found but not much else.
In an effort to stabilize my environment, I have installed and patched FTM on a standalone Windows XP PC. I also have built installations in Windows 7 and Windows XP on Virtual PCs running under Linux in Oracle VirtualBox and the problem is always the same. All I ever get is a disappearing release of FTM. Although happily, I have figured out some interesting and fast ways to build Windows Virtual PCs on my Linux hosts. The only viable solution I have discovered with FTM, however, is to ignore the FTM 2012 required patch. Now every time I run FTM 2012 I watch the dire warnings as I select the unacceptable options, by FTM’s report, all of this in an effort to keep FTM moderately functional.
So if you are considering buying FTM 2012 consider my small tale of woe. If it were not for the ancestry.com media synch functionality, I would have placed FTM 2012 along with my $40 in the dust bin of failed software a few weeks ago. But for now I’ll run it minus its critical and required updates, in hopes that the folks behind the development of this software stumble upon a workable and stable solution.
On the other hand, maybe Ancestry.com will release its database API (Application Programming Interface) and allow other software groups an opportunity to provide a reliable solution… I can hope.
Update #1: 15 May 2012
Well I added 2 GB more memory to my Win7 install to see if FTM2012 (after the ‘patch’) might simply be hung up due to lack of memory. I guess it still might need more memory; but with 3GB of memory, the situation remains the same. FTM (updated) continues to hang and freeze without any notification as to why or what is wrong. Oh well…
Update #2: 15 May 2012
I tried upgrading to a more “robust” version of Win7, Win7 Pro. Aside from using up 5 additional hours for upgrade and testing, nothing changed. FTM2012 still hangs up without any report or notice after I run their ‘required’ update. I know several folks say that the software works for them; well, I certainly wish I were in the ‘working’ group and not in my special user category.
May 14, 2012 @ 14:25:23
Thanks for the warning, I will be careful not to get the patch….this stupid 2012 FTM program is annoying enough as it is……Mary
May 14, 2012 @ 15:00:23
Thanks for the info. on the 2012 FTM I was think of upgrading from FTM 16 but I think I’ll just keep using it until I hear that they have eliminated the software problems.
Henry
May 15, 2012 @ 06:16:09
I, too, have had problems with FTM 2012. I was so excited when I received the CD, but that excitement didn’t last long. I found that I could not make a long Ahnentafel report. After numerous telephone calls to the tech department, I finally decided to install FTM 2008 (with a patch) onto my Windows 7 computer. I also have an old FTM 11 on my XP computer. FTM 11 makes great Ahnentafel reports (much better than the 2008 version). After many complaints, I was able to get about 3 months of free Ancestry, which was actually of great help to me (although I could have accessed it at my local Family History Center).
May 15, 2012 @ 09:35:13
I have been using FTM 2012 since it was released and have applied all updates. I am running it in Windows 7 Pro 64-bit and outside of it starting up a little slow (and its not alone with that issue) I have had no other problems. To me, it is so much better than FTM 2008/2009.
May 15, 2012 @ 12:10:59
Like Eileen, I have also been using FTM 2012 since it was released and have applied all updates. I’ve never had a problem.
May 15, 2012 @ 12:24:28
I wonder Stephen are you running Win7 pro? As a cheap guy, I am running Win7 Home. Perhaps that is part of the problem?!?!?
May 15, 2012 @ 15:10:35
I am running Windows 7 Home Premium, 64 bit, and have no problems with FTM 2012. I have always updated and never had a problem. Hope you can get your bugs figured out.
May 16, 2012 @ 11:35:07
I have been using FTM 2012 since its release, I have tried the sync option with ancestry.com and found thart it virtually froze. It was very slow to load and after repeated calls to ancestry who did not have an answerI decided to drop the sync option, it is still rather slow to load and some of the merges of information can take foreve. i still use FTM2012 and have downloaded all the upgrades, but I wish it was still as fast as FTM16 and other previous incarnations.
May 17, 2012 @ 22:37:49
There are numerous groups which only deal with the problems of the “new, Improved” FTM. Such as [email protected] Ever since the “improvement” from FTM-16 (which is great, bug-free, and that many people revert to after upgrading disasters–me for one), there have been horror stories of the new versions, year after year. Some people have no problem, some have no success. I had hoped that with Ancestry’s new-found wealth that they would hire someone to sort it out, but seems not. I have bought every upgrade since ver 16, and have had no success; but FTM-16 is great–simple and user-friendly.