Meade DSI and Windows 7

[bobsastro]

Anyone have any experience getting the Meade DSI (II Pro) drivers to install and be recognised in Windows 7 (Home Premium)? Autostar installs OK and runs OK in XP Compat. mode. I reinstalled the DSI USB drivers through the small program in the Autostar folder, and the "dsiusb" driver is in the Drivers folder, but when Win 7 recognises the DSI plugged in, it can't find the driver, and when I try to manually install it either through "Upgrade Driver" in Devices, or through "Add Hardware", Win 7 will not let me "see" the driver, and will not find it in the Drivers folder. Win 7 recognises the DSI as an Unknown Device.

Best Rgds,
Bob Fuller

[allan gould]

I cant get Envisage to run under W7 either.
Cant run Deepskystacker under W7 either. Keeps crashing.
Went back to XP.

[bobsastro]

Thanks for your comments. After a lot of forum searching, a solution to run the DSI on Win 7 64-bit seemed the only last option, which involved installing VMWare Player on the Win 7 (32-bit) laptop, installing XP Home in the partition, and then installing Autostar and Envisage in the XP partition. Even then it didn't recognise the DSI drivers, until in desperation I directed Add Hardware to the Driver folder in the installed Autostar folder in Programs. Go to the Envisage folder (even though that is not the installed Envisage!), and burrow down to the XP drivers, and Add Hardware finally recognised and installed the DSI. When is Meade going to understand you can't buy new laptops with XP anymore, or even downgrade a Win 7 installation?

Best Rgds,
Bob

[allan gould]

Ill stick to XP.
Have the discs for XP, Vista and W7 for my new Toshiba laptop, but will stick to XP as I see no advantage to go W7

[hal9000_mark1]

Hi all,

I have opened a thread on "Cloudynights" debating this topic (http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=3781099&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=all&fpart=&vc=1).

If you know someone owning a DSI camera it would be nice to make him know about this post. Maybe we could find a solution.

Thank you

[M_Lewis]

Another solution which will work is to do a search for 'XP on Windows 7', choose the microsoft link and download the XP virtualisation software for Windows 7. (It's called XP Mode)

What it will do, is run a virtual copy of XP in windows 7 with full 100% XP compatability - because it is XP, just running in a window on the Windows 7 platform. It's a standard feature of windows 7 - dont' get this confused with the properties/compatability option if you right click on an item to try and backward compat it.

I've used this numerous times on special XP only software at work and for situations like you have experienced above.

This way you can enjoy the benefits of new architecture of windows 7 for the newer processors, memory maps, directX etc, but also have the benefit of a fully working XP machine on demand.

Cheers

Mark

[hal9000_mark1]

None of the MEADE Imagers (DSI I, II and III and LPI) will work with x64 operating systems (Most of new computers are 64 bits based).

Nowadays the only solution for those systems is to install a Virtual Machine (Like VMWare) and run a 32 bits Operative System inside it (like Windows XP).

If you don't like this solution (as me) I ask you to visit the abovementioned post on "Cloudynights" and post your ideas on how to solve this problem, because it's our problem and MEADE wont solve it.

Thank you again.

[Tandum]

I've had a meade DSI 2 and envisage running on windows 7 32bit for a long time and the only problem I've had is focusing with envisage. It would crash when focusing if you went too far out of focus which is an envisage problem not a windows problem.

If you have windows 64bit installed you can use the in built windows tools to resize/split your hard drive and install windows 32bit using the same serial number as the 64bit version and dual boot. You just need a 32bit disk.

The solution is to get meade to catch up, the next windows will not have a 32bit version at all.

Allan, you'd be a mug to go back to a 10 year old version of windows.

[hal9000_mark1]

Finally MEADE has developed the x64 driver for the DSI family.

You can find it at http://www.meade.com/support/downloads.html.

You will need to download the Envisage software. The drivers are built in.

Thank you.

[tomfield]

Is the DSI a DirectX camera?

Can I use it with video viewing programs other than Meade's?

Does it produce DirectX videos?

[dannat]

i have a win7 32 bit version- can they be bought, i got mine from an edu institution -will the camera work in nebulosity? i hated the meade software, nebulosity recognises dsi's & is much better imo

[supernova1965]

I bought my Win7 upgrade Home Premium in a three licience pack for $239.00. I have the LPI working in win7 32 bit with a little tweaking from this link http://meade4m.com/forum/index.php/topic,1747.0.html so I would be surprised it you can't get the DSI to work maybe with some tweaking required. Meade need to get off their collective ##### and provide drivers for the latest operating system especially for 64bit systems I mean Win7 has been around for a while now and it is successful unlike when VISTA came out it was a nightmare but Win7 has a high uptake rate I was installing Win7 in buisness situations within a year or two of it being released which Vista couldn't achieve in its entire life short as it was. And Win7 will be the standard that all future Windows systems will be judged on as was XP.

[Newtownian]

I had been experiencing problems with Windows 7 and a DSI Color 2. But now it seems to work ok with the system I have here except the screen cuts out the bottom menus for focusing.

So here is the situation that seemed to work.

- I went to the Meade site http://www.meade.com/support/downloads.html

- I downloaded to the desktop and reinstalled Autostar version 5.5.
- Then I installed envisage 7.09 similarly and accepted all changes including a new frames version - notionally for a 64 bit system.

- On the off chance it would work I then plugged the DSI 2 into a usb port. Then I activated envisage - and it all seems to work.

The computer is an Acer Aspire 1 happy netbook operating the 32 bit cut down version of Windows 7. Its basic but it has a great battery life and it is very light. Yes 32 bit. Go figure.




:)