Technical Support Information No. 201c January 2013

Transcription

1 Customer Focus Page 1 of 6 Application Personal Computer (APC) Issues on Newer Windows PC Operating Systems Background Application Personal Computer (APC 7.0) software was originally developed as a DOS application to provide an interface to the Optichrom Advance Gas Chromatograph using a Windows PC. The application was then modified and re-written in Visual Basic 6.0 (APC 8.1.6) with the exception of a few programs retained from the original DOS environment: Editor.exe, Chrom.exe, ADBlist.exe and ADBmake.exe. On recent PC systems, there have been issues with some of these programs still operating in the DOS environment. Some of these issues are related to missing DOS files or newer operating systems running in a 64-bit environment (available on Windows 7). Most of the recent issues are related to the Table Editor (editor.exe) and file Make and List (adblist.exe and adbmake.exe) programs due to them being written in a 16-bit DOS environment. Symptoms The symptoms shown here have been observed when trying to operate these programs, but there may be other symptoms experienced that have not been reported. Typically, there are three different options for launching these programs. Clicking on the link shown in the APC application window after launching APC81.exe Double-clicking the program file (*.exe) using Windows Explorer Opening a DOS Window and typing the file name from the command prompt 32-bit operating systems The following window is displayed when trying to operate the Table Editor program (Editor.exe) by: clicking on the link in the APC application window; typing the command from a DOS prompt; or double clicking executable in Windows Explorer

2 Customer Focus Page 2 of 6 64-bit operating systems The following error is displayed when trying to operate the Table Editor program by double clicking Editor.exe in Windows Explorer (note clicking the link in the APC application window does nothing) The following error type is displayed when at the DOS prompt and trying to operate either editor.exe to open the Table Editor, adblist.exe to convert an AMD file to a text file, or adbmake.exe to convert a text file to an AMD file Solution There is now an approved resolution or workaround that can be used to run these applications on a 64-bit system and has also been proven to help with the 32-bit system issues mentioned. It is a free-ware application called DOSBox, which can emulate a virtual x86 (32-bit) environment on a x64 (64-bit) system and allow x16 (16-bit) applications to operate. The latest DOSBox installer can be downloaded from dosbox.com and installed on any Windows computer. The following explains the installation and operation for using most DOS programs or applications. 1) Install the DOSBox application on the computer using the installer - DOSBox0.74-win32-installer.exe 2) The DOSBox application will require you to mount a virtual C: drive to run the APC executables (Editor.exe, adblist.exe, adbmake.exe). APC files are currently located under C:\Maxum System Manager\APC directory. The entire APC directory must be copied directly under the C:\ drive so that it can be mounted as C:\APC

3 Customer Focus Page 3 of 6 3) Start DOSBox application and notice a DOS window appears with Z:\ prompt 4) Type mount c c:\apc\ and hit enter and the message "Drive C is mounted as local directory c:\apc\" should be displayed 5) Once the virtual C drive is mounted, change from Z:\ to C:\ by typing C: and <Enter>

4 Customer Focus Page 4 of 6 6) Now being on virtual C:\ it is possible to see executables from the APC directory files by typing dir *.exe 7) It is now possible to execute the Editor.exe by typing editor and <Enter> (same for adblist.exe and adbmake.exe)

5 Customer Focus Page 5 of 6 8) After opening the Table Editor, the default directory must be changed in order to see the default ADB folder where all database files are saved. On the keyboard type U for Utility, then highlight Change Directory and press <Enter>. 9) In the Enter new table set directory: field, type \ADB and press <Enter>

6 Customer Focus Page 6 of 6 Additional Comments If the default directory used for saving the database or ADB files (ADB) has been changed to a different location, there may be issues when trying to view saved ADB files. It will work only if the new directory path is located under the APC directory. This is because after mounting the C drive in step #4, it causes the C:\ prompt to actually point at C:\APC\, meaning that any path entered in step #9, will automatically begin with \APC For example, if the new directory name is MYADB and has the path \APC\MYADB, the path entered will be \MYADB Accordingly, when operating either the adblist.exe or adbmake.exe programs, the files must be saved somewhere under the APC directory tree. Then when entering the path to the file, it cannot contain \APC. For example, if the file is saved under C:\APC\MYADB, then the commands entered for each program would be: adblist C:\MYADB\[FILNAME] adbmake C:\MYADB\[FILENAME] Again, this is due to the fact that when entering C:\ for any path, it is automatically adding C:\APC, which means the command entered above would automatically be entered as: adblist C:\APC\MYADB\[FILENAME] adbmake C:\APC\MYADB\[FILENAME] Please keep in mind that this is just a workaround to provide the ability to run these x16 (16-bit) DOS programs on a 64-bit system manually. They cannot be started from the APC application window in this environment. Once the DOSBox window is closed, the virtual environment is shut-down. In order to use the Table Editor and the other two programs again, repeat the steps above starting with step #3.