windows7pro and microcode studio compatibility

[Scottie]

so working for two days trying to get the MicroCode studio plus, PBP, and the U2 programmer to work and still no luck have set and unset admin and compatibility modes without sucess. I have 64bit win7pro on an hp dv6 laptop. I get constant errors when starting that the MCS it has stopped working and search for fix online but none to be found. in win7 though the U2 programmer is working.

Tried XP mode(Virtual Machine) and the mcs seems to work and PBP also but the MElabs U2 programmer is never found as recognizable because it is a hid device.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated

[Darrel Taylor]

Are you installing MCS+ from the old black&white CD?

If so, this may help ...

Installing MicroCode Studio Plus with Vista/Win7
http://www.picbasic.co.uk/forum/content.php?r=143

[Scottie]

Nope its the blue one ver 4.0.0.0 and PBp ver 2.60a
Program works fine on my vaio (with xp) but sure would like to have it on working on my laptop. stupid windows 7 thought the pro version would work but it hasn't so far.

[Darrel Taylor]

MicroCode Studio works just fine with Windows7-64.
That's what I have at work.

When installing, be sure to Right-Click the install program and "Run as Administrator.
Even if you are logged in as an administrator "user".
Don't let it just AutoRun when you put the CD in.
It needs to write several Registry keys that requires a higher permission level than some computers are setup for..

PM.exe, the default assembler that comes with PicBasic Pro is a 16-bit program.
It will not run on a 64-bit system (except in a virtual XP).
So be sure to use MPASM for the assembler stage.

[Scottie]

I am beginning to think there may be something wrong my machine. The other day, writing parameters to a 485 buss DPM and I think it corrupted the calibration memory of a couple temperature panel meters. That area of memory was not supposed to be accessable to the user. Just after writing to it the scaling and zero went all off.

With MSC+ I thought I did as advised on the install but am not sure anymore. The battery is dead and charger at work so will need to try remove and reinstall tomorrow to see if it helps. Is there anything special that I should do to remove??

The randomness of the program failures on startup are strange. I get appcrash in the details of the fault and it is in areas of different modules not the same faults every time. Only consistant is that it seems to do it right on startup of the program.

So whats up with microsoft anyway. I wonder why they left out support for HID devices in the legacy devices for XP VM. I saw some other users with the same complaint with foot pedals and other hardware that is unavailable in that mode as well. Makes it kind of useless if you can't see hardware.

[Scottie]

So in trying to isolate the fault in my software I found that when PBP is installed and selected in the compiler options is when I get the fault on startup. If I install the PBP demo from the X1 tutorial CD and point the complier to it all is fine. But the demo isn't what I want to use...
The ApplicationError that shows up is

Exception EInvalidPointer in module CodeStudioPlus.exe at 00018DC2
Invalid pointer operation

Do you think my CD can be bad?

[Darrel Taylor]

Scottie,

I haven't seen that error before.
But i was wondering if you could try the free version 4.0.0.0 and see if it gives the same error.
http://melabs.com/resources/win_ide.htm

You can have both the free and plus versions installed at the same time.

[Scottie]

No that one didn't help either. Same problem and error code...
I made sure to install it with admin set and called.

[Normnet]

so working for two days trying to get the MicroCode studio plus, PBP, and the U2 programmer to work and still no luck...
Try FineLineIDE Beta, a new IDE.
One file cut, copy paste exe.
Not yet fully tested in Windows 7 but others have reported OK and it's easily tried.
PM me with email address to try.

Norm

[Scottie]

So the FL IDE worked much better so far. No issues with the PBP interface or the MPASM. It wouldn't find the exe's automatically but manual mode worked. I thought it wouldn't keep the parameters for different programmers but the second time I put them it it seems to have kept them.
Default settings for ME Labs U2 programmer would be nice as that seems to be what they are replacing the serial and maybe parallel units with. I haven't figured out the parameters to pass program info to the pickit2 programmer yet.
Picking the origional IDE had the same error I started with in this thread as expected because it calls the MCS+ but who cares as you don't need it with this IDE. Not sure why you even need to put that option in.

Thanks for the try out
Scottie

[Normnet]

... It wouldn't find the exe's automatically but manual mode worked.
Default settings for ME Labs U2 programmer would be nice as that seems to be what they are replacing the serial and maybe parallel units with.
I haven't figured out the parameters to pass program info to the pickit2 programmer yet...Scottie
What are the default directory's for the exe's in windows 7?
If someone has the ME Labs U2 programmer parameters I can add them as a preloaded programmer.
The PICkit2 should have a preloaded programmer tab on startup as well as PICkit3 and EasyPicX.

Norm

[Ioannis]

Hi Norm. Up to this moment, the FL has shown to be stable and very nice designed interface.

Tested on WinXP SP3.

Very good job,
Ioannis

[mackrackit]

I have been using FL since July on Win7 64 bit.
Works great!!!

[Scottie]

the meLabs u2 programmer ended up here
C:\Program Files (x86)\melabs Programmer\meProg.exe
and I used this parameter string
-pPIC$target-device$ $hex-filename$ -E

to get the code out using pickit2 I downloaded the pic2cmd from melabs and put it here
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microchip\PICkit 2 v2\pk2cmd.exe
with this parameter string
pk2cmd -PPIC$target-device$ -F$hex-filename$ -E -M -J -H4 -R

writes the code in the background without prompts

Don't know why the pickit2 settings didn't work for me but I kind of like the pk2cmd driver better anyway

I love your IDE and so glad to have you shared it as it saved me with my system conflicts