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GPINT - works under WinXP but not Win7 64bit?
Any ideas folks?
My Astrolab operated fine for years using ShoeString Astronomy's GPINT, FCUSB and DSUB - controlled by a dedicated WinXP machine. These products respectively control autoguider into a SkySensor2000-PC, a Meade Motorfocuser and a Canon 400D DSLR.
Today I tried to utilise a newly created Win7 64 bit (far more powerful machine) to run my Astrolab. But I can't get the GPINT to control the telescope using the Win7 machine.
I'm thinking of bypassing the GPINT (leave it on a backup Win XP machine) and moving to GPUSB. (NB the GPUSBChecker software doesn't install cleanly on any Win7 machine - fails with an OLE registery problem - see below).
My challenge is that I've created a new more power PC to run my astrolab. I have currently your focus controller, DSLR camera controller and Guide port controller. All worked fine for years under Windows XP. A few months ago I upgraded the Win XP box from ASCOM 5 to 6 painlessly.
On the weekend I build a more powerful PC that was Windows 7 Ultimate with Service Pack 1 to replace the Win XP box. After a significant job downloading all the software and configuring it to match the Win XP machine I have run extensive testing.
The successes:
1. DSUB works fine controlling a Canon 400D DSLR
2. FSUB works fine controlling a Meade motorfocus unit
My Challenge
GPINT doesn't want to play nice. GPINT checker simply fails to move the mount. Its connected to a SkySensor2000-PC controller that I've been using in this arrangement for years (using a break-out box to re-wire the ST4 interface to the SS2K pin configuration. Basically it was just pop the GPINT of the old PC and put it on the new. On the new PC I've changed the Parallel port from bi-directional to ECP + EPP - same as the Win XP box at the BIOS level.
So my Setup is basically The Sky6 Professional Edition -> ASCOM6 -> Maxpoint -> Vixen SS2K-PC driver. I connect on this then zoom in on a star in the Sky6 then issue guide commands to check how the mount responds to autoguide commands. For years this has worked fine using my WinXP box.
Is there anything more you could recommend I check? I'm about to do some side by side testing - running both PCs in the astrolab and swapping the GPINT from the WinXP machine to the Win7 one and running GPINTChecker. If the WinXP still works fine but the Win7 doesn't I'll look at the signals going out with a multi-meter from each PC.
If I can't figure this out I'll simply suspect the Win7 PC port is cactus and buy a GPUSB version and try my luck with that.
In anticipation of this I downloaded your GPUSB ASCOM driver - which installed fine. Then I downloaded GPUSBChecker - its installer encountered an error on two of my Win7 machines;
windows\system32\stdole2.tlb
Unable to register the type library: RegisterTypeLib failed: code 0x8002801C
Error accessing the OLE registery
I tried this install under a power user and the administrator account - both failed.
(NB update - installed this under WinXP SP2 compatability mode - and it installed with no error messages!)
Any thoughts anyone? I've mailed these challenges to Doug at ShoeString Astronomy too!
Last edited by g__day; 13-09-2011 at 12:50 AM.
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