FAQ: Upgrades and Maintenance Releases

• How do I update Personal Knowbase to the latest version?
• How will I know when Personal Knowbase has been updated?
• Is this an upgrade or a maintenance release?
• How do I tell what version I'm running?
• What if I'm not sure that I want to upgrade?
• Can I get support for PK 2.x?
• Change my email address or stop upgrade notifications.
• I'm not receiving notifications of upgrades. Why not?
• What is your policy on free upgrades?

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To update Personal Knowbase to the latest version, please see Personal Knowbase Updates page.

If you are still using version 2.x or 3.x, please see the Upgrade page for information on upgrading to version 4.

You can quickly check if a newer version is available by using the Check for Personal Knowbase Update command from the Help menu.

Major upgrades: Registered users who have requested to be notified receive email announcements when new major versions are available. These notices include instructions for getting the new version.

To subscribe to the mailing list, see our Customer Mailing List page.

Maintenance releases: Minor releases, generally bug fixes, are announced on our blog and may be downloaded from the Updates page. Unless you are experiencing problems with the software, you may not need to download these updates.

What's the difference between an “upgrade” and a “maintenance release”?

We use the term “upgrade” to describe a major new version of the software with notable new features. An upgrade is represented by a change to the first or second digit in the version number. For example, 3.1 and 4.0 are upgrades.

We use the term “maintenance release” to describe minor fixes to the software. A maintenance release is represented by a change to the third digit of the version number. For example, 3.2.1 and 4.0.1 are maintenance releases.

Select About Personal Knowbase from the Help menu to find out which version you have installed.

If you're not sure if you're ready to move on and get the upgrade, you can try out the new version first. Click here to download the trial.

You can install PK 4.1 alongside your current version in a different program folder. Or, you can install PK 4.1 over version 3.2. If you decide to return to PK 3.2, just re-install the old PK 3.2 back over 4.1.

As of March 9, 2015, we no longer provide support for Personal Knowbase version 2.x. PK 2.x has issues running under modern versions of Windows, starting with Win Vista/7 and later.

Please consider upgrading to version 4.

If you wish to continue running PK 2.x, you should be able to do so indefinitely, as long as you have a computer running an old version of Windows which can run it. Keep your PK 2.x registration information and an old copy of the pksetup.exe installation file. We will no longer be able to provide the old registration info and installation file.

Thank you for your continued interest.

If you want to use a different email address for upgrade notifications and news, if you want to be removed from the customer mailing list, or if you want to be added to the customer mailing list, see our Customer Mailing List page.

Possible reasons for not receiving notifications are:

1. Our email to you is being filtered and deleted by your ISP or email software. Spam filtering is currently the most common reason for missing email. You may want to send us an alternative email address if you think your spam filters are preventing email delivery.

   Free email services (such as Gmail and Hotmail) have particularly unreliable spam filtering. Cox.net apparently delivers no commercial email.

2. Have you purchased a license? We only send notifications to customers. To order, see the Ordering page.

3. We only mail out notifications for upgrades (see explanation) but not for maintenance releases.

4. The email address that we have for you may be invalid. If you think this may be the case, please see the Customer Mailing List page.

5. When you ordered Personal Knowbase, you requested not to receive announcements. If you would now like to start getting the notices, please see the Customer Mailing List page to add yourself to the mailing list.

All maintenance releases are free to registered customers.

Minor upgrades (4.1, etc) are free to registered customers.

Major upgrades (4.0, etc) are discounted to registered customers. These upgrades may be made available for free to users who purchased the program within a pre-determined number of days of the major release.

A license is for one major version only, including minor revisions, up to, but not including the next first-digit upgrade. So, if you purchase 4.0, you get all updates free up to, but not including, 5.0.