Close Quick English™ Upgrade Instructions
Upgrade
Policy:
As a matter of policy, upgrades to the Quick English™ software (i.e., the programs and lesson data) will be made freely available on the web site, so that purchasers of a QE™ CD can make use of their investment for as long as technically possible.

We'll try our best on this page to explain the procedure for downloading and setting up the upgrades. We'll also try to answer e-mails from folks who need additional help; however, because we're not making any money off the upgrades, we don't promise an unlimited amount of free technical support in this. (Most of our customers are of the language-lab sort, and typically have a technician available locally who should be able to set things up for them based on the material here, so we don't anticipate any problems with this policy...)

In the event that the upgrade instructions seem overly complex, users who desire simplicity may choose to upgrade their current QE™ CDs at any time by returning one or more CDs along with a check for US$10.00 per CD, and we will send back an equal number of up-to-date replacement CDs. This option will also be available when entire new versions of the QE™ CD are released.
Intro: When the Quick English™ program runs, it checks the main Windows folder to see if its Initialization File contains a section with instructions on where to locate the Movie, Audio, and Lesson files. If no such instructions are found, QE™ expects to find the files on the CD. To upgrade the QE™ software, therefore, you need to do four things:
  • Download the appropriate QE™ upgrade for your CD (it's a .ZIP file)
  • Unzip the files to a folder on your hard disk
  • Edit the .INI file so that it tells QE™ where the new lesson files are
  • Set up a shortcut (icon) on the desktop that points to the new program file
Step 1: You can presently download upgrades for the following QE™ titles by clicking on the links:
(An upgrade for the Quick English™ Junior 1 ESL for Windows is not yet finished. The Junior 1 ESL title uses an enhanced MTX™ dictionary engine for its Vocabulary pop-up notes, and that hasn't been integrated into the upgraded QE™ program yet. Send us an e-mail to nag/encourage us if you're a Junior user!)

Clicking on one of the links should bring up dialog box in your web browser asking if you want to download the .ZIP file. Say "OK" and save it to your hard disk in a place you'll remember. Send us an e-mail if you're having trouble with this Step.
Step 2: The upgrades are compressed into .ZIP-format file archives for ease of downloading. Most computers have some sort of "un-zipping" software already installed, so you should be able to simply double-click on the .ZIP file once you've downloaded it; then choose a location to "extract" the zipped files into.

We suggest un-zipping the files into a root-level folder on your hard disk (e.g., in the "C:\" folder). Each QE™ title has an associated "key letter" that we use to keep things sorted out and identifiable internally. We strongly recommend using the following folder names for QE™ upgrades:
  • QEB for the General 1 title
  • QEA for the General 2 title
  • QEC for the Business 1 title
  • QED for the Business 2 title
  • QEN for the Junior 1 title
(For the remainder of this document, we'll be using the QE™ General 1 title as an example, and assuming a location of "C:\QEB" for the un-zipped files.)

Once you've unzipped the upgrade files, you should have the following files in your C:\QEB folder:
      QE2000G1.EXE
      QE2000G1.HLP
      Data32 - (this is a folder)

The C:\QEB\Data32 folder should contain one or more of the following files:

      B1.DLL, B2.DLL, ... B10.DLL (i.e., the 10 lesson files);

      BC.DLL, BG.DLL, BM.DLL, CROSS.DLL, PC.DLL (Game and Corner data, etc.)

With these files in place, you're ready to move on to Step 3.

If you don't have software already installed on your computer that will let you easily un-zip the files, please ask a technical friend to help you get set up with WinZip or PKZip or something similar. Providing such instructions is beyond the scope of this document. (If enough people let us know that they'd appreciate some sort of .EXE-format download with a built-in installer for the upgrade files, we'll consider making that available as an option. For now, we're judging that .ZIP is a widely-familiar format; and it's the simplest way for us to make the upgrades available.)
Step 3: You now need to locate and edit the .INI file for your QE™ title. The .INI file is located in the main Windows folder, and is named according to the main .EXE program file for your QE™ title. We've named the program file upgrades as follows:
  • "QE2000G1.EXE" is the QE™ General 1 ESL program
  • "QE2000G2.EXE" is the QE™ General 2 ESL program
  • "QE2000B1.EXE" is the QE™ Business 1 ESL program
  • "QE2000B2.EXE" is the QE™ Business 2 ESL program
  • "QE2000J1.EXE" is the QE™ Junior 1 ESL program
So, the .INI files are named accordingly: QE2000G1.INI, QE2000G2.INI, QE2000B1.INI, QE2000B2.INI, and QE2000J1.INI. They are located in the main Windows folder on your computer. Typically, this folder is on the C: drive and may be named something like "Windows", "Win98", "WinNT", etc. (If you're not sure where your Windows folder is, your technician/friend should know.)

If you've been using that QE™ CD on that computer for awhile, you should already have the .INI file (it's where QE™ keeps track of which Questions and Games you've seen for each lesson). However, unless you've played around with some of the program options in QE™, the .INI file may not have the "program option" section in place, and you'll have to create it...

You can double-click the .INI file to open it in Notepad. You are looking for a line that looks like this:

      [Quick English] - if it doesn't exist, you need to type it in, including the brackets

Directly underneath this line, you need to type in the following lines:

      MoviePath=F:\qeb\movies
      AudioPath=F:\qeb\audio
      DataPath=C:\qeb\data32

Note that the MoviePath and AudioPath values point to the folders on the CD drive, so the "F:" in the above example may well have to be changed to a different letter for your computer. (If you don't know the drive letter of your CD drive, ask your technician/friend.) Also note that you could, in fact, copy the movies and audio files from the CD to your hard disk along with the upgrade files, and simply change the lines in the .INI file accordingly. This would take up a lot of space, but would result in "snappier" performance when running QE™.
Step 4: As a final step, you need to set up a shortcut (icon) on your computer screen so that you can easily run the upgraded QE™ program. The specifics of doing this vary a bit depending on which version of Windows you're running (if in doubt, ask a technician/friend for help). With most versions of Windows, you:
  • right-click on the desktop area
  • choose "New", then choose "Shortcut"
  • fill in "C:\QEB\QE2000G1.EXE" (or whichever QE™ upgrade you installed and wherever you put it) as the "location" of the item you're shortcutting
  • fill in "QE General 1" (or something you like better) as the "name" of the shortcut/icon
  • drag the new shortcut icon to wherever you want it to appear on your desktop
Now, double-click the new icon to test it. You should see the Quick English window appear, and then the lesson menu. If you get any error messages about QE™ being unable to locate its Lessons, Movies, or Audio files, review the settings in your .INI file.

Note that whenever you insert your QE™ CD into your computer, it will continue to bring up its simple opening menu giving you the option to either install QE™ or run it directly from the CD. You'll need to press [Cancel] to clear the menu, and instead use your new desktop shortcut to launch the upgraded QE™ software.
That should do it! If you have trouble, send us an e-mail and we'll try to help point out what went wrong.