Trouble w/ old National Geographic software

[RyanSchilling]

Hi all -- I'm on a new computer, and was trying to reinstall my old TOPO! software. Trouble is I'd only kept the CD-ROMs, and it's asking for a serial number. NG sold off this business years ago, so it's an unsupported product.

• Any idea where one can find an installer for the last versions of the TOPO! software? I'm pretty sure my CD-ROM only has v4.0, but my files are all saved w/ v4.5. v4.6 is effectively the same version from what I can glean, so either would work.
• Does anyone here have a serial number they could share? I found one in an ancient thread on another site, but it didn't work (FZSI-2002-AAAA)

[CandaceS]

I have a version 4 California set. The serial number is tsca - 2002 - fxbb.

The installer disc for that set says it's version 4.24. I'm not sure which version of the exe file I'm using on my old laptop. I'll have to fire that up later and check.

BTW, I bought a new HP Pavilion Windows 10 laptop earlier this year. And I installed Topo on it. It worked okay for a while. But then it would crash every time I tried to set a waypoint. So I uninstalled it, and I'm limited to using it on my old Windows 7 laptop.

[John Kirk]

Hi all -- I'm on a new computer, and was trying to reinstall my old TOPO! software. Trouble is I'd only kept the CD-ROMs, and it's asking for a serial number.

Ryan,
I have serial numbers for just about every state if you need to try more.

[RyanSchilling]

Hi Candace and John -- I appreciate the replies! I ended up tracking down a cheap DVD-ROM copy of TOPO! Washington, so I now have a copy of v4.6.

Candace: I, too, had this trouble with waypoints causing crashes on my last computer and this new one, but I found a workaround, if you're interested. Click View-> GPS Waypoint List to open the pane at the bottom of the screen. Right-click in the new pane and select New Waypoint, and it will create a waypoint at the center of the map window. You can accept this centerpoint or edit the coordinates, as needed. I'm able to use this Waypoint pane without crashing the software.

------------------

Since TOPO! has become so troublesome to find, I'm uploading an ISO to archive.org. I'll post a link here for posterity's sake once it's live.

EDIT-- Added link: https://archive.org/details/nat-geo-top ... -dvd-1of-1

[CandaceS]

Candace: I, too, had this trouble with waypoints causing crashes on my last computer and this new one, but I found a workaround, if you're interested. Click View-> GPS Waypoint List to open the pane at the bottom of the screen. Right-click in the new pane and select New Waypoint, and it will create a waypoint at the center of the map window. You can accept this centerpoint or edit the coordinates, as needed. I'm able to use this Waypoint pane without crashing the software.

I'll try this out, once I get TOPO re-installed on my laptop. Thank you!