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Q: I have ver. 2.0 on an old computer. Will this version work that data if I can transfer it from the old cpu to the new one?

This version they are selling now is a good working version. But I already had the same version number of it for years on another computer when I bought it. But even THEN, the data from my existing one would not work with the new one!! I thought this strange. What should work though is if you export the data from your old version as a CSV file and then import it into the new version. I've done this and had success. If you aren't familiar with CSV format (Comma Separated Variables) you could still have success if you play around with it for a while. One approach is to start learning by making a small test database (in the old version possibly) with garbage data just for practice.

Q: When I save a customized database, some of the entry fields go away. Any suggestions?

Perhaps this version of the software is not completely compatible with the operating system being used? We had a problem some years ago when using Alpha 4 Version 8. We'd been using A4V8 on a Win98 computer, and it worked great. However, when we installed A4V8 on a Win2000 computer we discovered that the Memo fields (which were saved in text files somehow separate from the data entry fields) became scrambled among many of the records. I had to re-enter the Memo fields in all the records we could find that were messed up. We discovered through an online forum that A4V8 was not completely compatible with Win2000 even though the A4V8 disc claimed it was. Our solution at the time was to move the work back to the Win98 computer, though we later upgraded to Alpha 5 Version 5 and continued using it with Win98.

Q: when importing data, what key for a field separator and for a record separator?

When importing or exporting data, you can use almost any character as a separator. I avoid using commas because they are too common. I general use a # or a &. But I don't now of any excluded characters to you can't use. Sometimes I use a double ## or && just to be extra safe.