Windows Vista with USB Serial problems

[richards]

I'm trying to help a fellow 'botter install a new HP laptop to run his PRS-Alpha. The computer is running Vista. We seem to having a permissions problem. When we downloaded the USB/Serial drivers from Shopbot and unzipped the files, we only see the files that are in the root directory of the CD. When I dug out my old driver's disk from Shopbot, we had the same problem. (On my XP-computer, all the files were visible but on the Vista machine only the files in the root directory were visible.)

On the Vista machine, the user has administrator privileges. There is no firewall. Norton has been removed from the machine.

Anyone have any experience with Vista and this particular problem?

[frank]

Hi Mike,

I don't know about files not showing up, but turning off user account control (UAC) had solved a lot of other problems. Also make sure to click on "show these files" if that option is available.

[harryball]

Turn off UAC as suggested, also turn off DEP for SB.exe. Start - Right click on Computer, Properties. Click on Advanced System Settings, Advanced Tab should now come up, click on Settings under the Performance section. Click on the Data Execution Prevention Tab, turn on DEP for all programs and services except...

Now Add and go add your sb.exe software. This allows your shopbot control software full and total access to the system memory to do whatever it wishes without Vista slapping in on the wrist or checking on it. It is the only way my design PC will run the software.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

/RB

[richards]

We tried turning off UAC, but we still can't load the USB driver. The laptop is running Vista Ultimate.

[richards]

Today I set up a desktop computer running Vista Home Premium.

I was able to connect with the Shopbot V201 card. Although the V201 card is only running test-bench equipment, it appeared to work as expected.

However, when I connected the Vista box to my PRT-Alpha, I could not load the drivers for my PRT-Alpha's USB to Serial adapter. Vista tells me that I have to have a frames.ocx file, then, Vista points me to the Adobe page for a download for that file. After downloading the Adobe file, I get the same missing OCX file error.

When I downloaded the Shopbot driver files from Shopbot (11+ MB) and extracted the files, there are no files in the Driver's folder on the Vista computer. As expected, I get a "file not found" error.

Using driver files that I copied from my XP-Pro computer (the computer that I've been using since 2004 with my PRT-Alpha) did not work with Vista.

I've put off using Vista for this long because my computer customers have had nothing but horror stories to tell when they've switched to Vista. Unfortunately, I can't buy XP-Pro from my regular supplier, so I'm stuck.

Would someone who is successfully running SB3 on a Vista machine tell me which version of Vista you're using and what steps you took to get things going?

[richards]

The Vista 64-bit Home Premium OS problem seems to have been solved.

I followed the instructions from Frank and Ryan at Shopbot about turning off the User Account Control (UAC). Then I followed Robert's suggestion to exclude SB3.exe from Data Execution Prevention (DEP). Finally, I downloaded the Vista 64-bit driver, GUC232A.zip, from I/O Gear's website. After extracting and running the setup.exe file, the Vista computer recognized the IOGear USB/Serial converter (after several computer restarts).

After changing the Port Setting to match the USB/Serial port number, everything seemed to work as expected.

[Brady Watson]

...except you might want to test a file over 1 million lines to make sure it doesn't give you an error. My 64-bit system has 8GB of RAM, but tops out at 1 million lines. Apparently the 64-bit OS handles SB3 differently than 32-bit. Something to check so that you don't pull your hair out later.

-B