MiKTeX and proTeXt ⇒ Installation and compiling problem

[ANANTHA]

Hello everybody,
I have the installation "Protext CD" . It has MikeTex 2.4.1705 version. I installed it on my home PC way back in 2006 and used it extensively without any problem ( windows XP OS). However when I recently tried to use LaTex at Office I installed it on a Vista machine at office (it installed without a problem). But I was unable to compile even the simplest of the simple files. Whenever I compiled a file I got the following 6 errors,
" You are attempting to make a LaTex format from a source file that is more than 5 years old."
I am unable to use it since it appears that there is a compatibility problem with this CD. Or is it that I have not insatlled something correctly!
I request you to kindly help me overcoming with this problem
Regards

[localghost]

MiKTeX 2.4 is out of date for a long time now. Get MiKTeX 2.8 and try again.


Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten¹

[josephwright]

The five-year message has been removed from LaTeX in the latest release, as it is likely that there will not be many changes to it (although there is currently one I know of). Any up-to-date LaTeX system (MiKTeX or TeX Live on Windows) will work without this issue.

[ANANTHA]

Thank you for your earnest reply, I downloaded the latest version of protext form their site. I need assistance in making a CD of this .exe file which i have downloaded. It is close to 783 MB.
Firstly Do I have to run this .exe file and burn a CD of the result which I get?
Secondly , I also would like to know if I have not installed the MIKETEX completely ( i.e. choosing install "complete Miketex" while installing) then some of the files particularly the Beamer will not get compiled . How do I proceed?
I installed this on a windows OS and it started compiling the simple files. However when I wanted to compile a presentation of Beamer , nothing happened. It means neither the process showed any errors ( it showed zero errors ) nor there was any output. (
I guess the Beamer package needs to be loaded. while earlier version of Miketex ( which I have a CD for) used to prompt me to insert the CD to get hold of the packages required for compiling. Now since I am installing the Miketex in a different way, I am unable to install the required packages . Request you for a reply.

[josephwright]

I am not quite sure what you have downloaded. The standard MiKTeX installer is about 80 Mb, and is an .exe you just run. It will then download what it needs from the internet as it runs.

With regard to partial installation, you can either let MiKTeX download missing files from the internet as it runs, or use the Package Manager to select all of the packages and install them.