Finding old HMRC CD-Roms?
July 29, 2010 5:14 AM Subscribe
Are old HMRC CD-Roms archived, officially or unofficially, anywhere?
For various reasons, I have found myself in the unenviable position of needing to find a copy of the 2009 HMRC Employer's CDROM. Obviously, HMRC don't provide archives, and their data is all stored in undocumented binary formats. Does anyone know of any sites or bittorrent sources for these disks (or any other mechanism of finding them?)
For various reasons, I have found myself in the unenviable position of needing to find a copy of the 2009 HMRC Employer's CDROM. Obviously, HMRC don't provide archives, and their data is all stored in undocumented binary formats. Does anyone know of any sites or bittorrent sources for these disks (or any other mechanism of finding them?)
Response by poster: Thanks samj, that's some good google-fu there. Sadly it's the CD Image I need, as I lost some paperwork it generated, can't download the stuff it generated (and I submitted), and I need to access old backups of the data. I'm not submitting anything, just recreating records.
I will torrent this damn thing if I ever find it. The whole HMRC approach to electronic filing and data applications is just a car-crash of appallingly designed systems. But that's our tax at work for us!
posted by davemee at 6:47 AM on July 29, 2010
I will torrent this damn thing if I ever find it. The whole HMRC approach to electronic filing and data applications is just a car-crash of appallingly designed systems. But that's our tax at work for us!
posted by davemee at 6:47 AM on July 29, 2010
Ah ok, so you are stuck because you have data that can be read by the software on the 2009 CD. Have you had a peek at the files? Are you sure they are not just some sort of XML or other common format. If you open one up in a hex editor (like hxd) and paste a screen-shot of the beginning of the file someone may recognise the format (I can't promise this won't leak some of your financial data, but I assume it's not that exciting).
I guess the best you can hope for is some kind person with a 2009 CD otherwise!
posted by samj at 7:17 AM on July 29, 2010
I guess the best you can hope for is some kind person with a 2009 CD otherwise!
posted by samj at 7:17 AM on July 29, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks samj.
Yup, they're just raw binary data. It's like it's been built for MSDOS in the 80s.
posted by davemee at 7:24 AM on July 29, 2010
Yup, they're just raw binary data. It's like it's been built for MSDOS in the 80s.
posted by davemee at 7:24 AM on July 29, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/employers/cdrom/ECD2008_PDFVersion_TE.zip
I think this may be the contents of the 2009 CD, or it may just be the manual for it:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=inurl:p49-2009-graphics+site:www.hmrc.gov.uk&hl=en&filter=0
Do you really need the original CD, or are you just looking for a single document from it? From my (damn limited) understanding there is no way to submit online using it any more.
posted by samj at 6:07 AM on July 29, 2010