My pic machine hard disk went down on Friday (RIP). On the new hard drive I reloaded my existing data files and updated pbp, microcode studio plus and mplab. Not surprisingly, it doesn't work. Apart from a couple of hours taking friends to see the shuttle launch I just spent the entire weekend and now Monday morning trying to burn a pic.

I have a couple of questions:

1) Previously, it would compile and open mplab displaying the asm. One existing blink file will open mplab with the assembler window and program okay. If I save that file, calling it something like blink1 it will no longer display the assembler window in mplab. If I open the asm file, it programs but doesn't work. No other programs, new or existing, will open the assembler window and don't work if I manually load asm.

One clue is that removing the old mplab project from the subdirectory stops it working, but creating a new project for new or existing files doesn't work.

I tried reinstalling the programs in a different order, following the tutorials and instructions to the letter. Paths are set correctly in environmental variables, and language suite is apparently correct. Tried it with and without the mpasm box checked.

There are similar problems on the forums, but none of the solutions have worked. Help very much appreciated.

Windoze2Ksp4/ MCS+ 2.2.1.1/ PBP 2.46

2) I understand that a large part of the problem is that my setup comes from four different vendors. I am an automation engineer and regularly use pics, but every time there's the slightest upgrade I have to jump through hoops just to make it work again.

It's not a money issue, but compared to my other programming environments (Visual Basic, RealBasic on Mac) I seem to have spent more money on programming pics and am rewarded by absolutely zero support. If I changed to a more integrated solution (such as Proton), do these problems go away?

Thanks for your help.