Older PC Exchange may work in cases where Mac OS 8.5's File Exchange does not

Addie Teagardin and Brooks Weisblat both report problems with using the Ariston USB iRead PC/SmartMedia card reader (running Mac OS 8.5.x). In one case, inserting a SmartMedia card led to a system crash; in the other it resulted in the card being listed as unreadable. I am not sure how widespread such problems may be. However, of particular interest was the work-around that Addie discovered: Reinstalling PC Exchange and Mac OS Easy Open (from Mac OS 8.0) allowed the card reader to work (even though Mac OS 8.5's File Exchange should have made these files unnecessary).

Similarly, David Morganstein could not get his G3 Mac running Mac OS 8.5 to read JPEG files from a DOS-formatted disk. Reverting from File Exchange to the former PC Exchange solved the problem.