Meade LPI User Manual download pdf

Installing Meade AS in a Win 7 XPMode environment

Overview

Following a request for any group members experience of installing Meades Autostar Suite and DSI camera on a

PC running the Windows 7 64 bit Operating System, below is a description of my attempts.

When MS introduced Vista in 2007 many user found they had serious issues running previous generation

software and hardware, particularly when using the 64 bit version of the OS. Hardware was especially hit

because significant effort was required to create new drivers, which were slow in coming or never arrived at

all... Software didn’t suffer quite so bad because of WOW (Windows on Windows) that allowed the older

software to run in an x86 emulation mode.

With the introduction of Windows 7 MS seem to have learnt many of the bitter lessons of the Vista failures. In

order to improve the backward compatability of Windows 7 with previous generations of software, MS have

introduced a way to “virtualise” your old XP (or Vista) based applications within the 7 OS. Most importantly, a

way to handle hardware drivers for old 32 bit applications is now provided within the 64 bit version of the OS. If

this works it of course provides a mechanism for us to run Meade’s AS applications & DSI hardware on the latest

shiny super powerful PC’s and laptops (but note the caveats listed at the end of the overview!).

The software components that we use to create this virtualised environment are available, for free, to users of

1 Windows 7 Professional

2 Enterprise

3 Ultimate

(see the caveat at end of section for other versions of Windows 7)

In order to create the XP virtual machine (for a 64 bit OS version) two components must be downloaded from

Microsoft:-

Virtual PC (Note: This may be pre-installed on the full releases)

“Windows® Virtual PC is a new optional component for the Windows 7 operating system that you can use to

evaluate and migrate to Windows 7 while maintaining compatibility with applications that run on older versions

of Windows.”

The downloaded executable is named - Windows6.1-KB958559-x64_VirtualPC.msu (6.8 Mb)

Windows XPMode

(You can use an existing XP Pro cd instead see Windows 7 comments below)

“This is a pre-packaged virtual machine (XP SP3) that is ready to go”

The downloaded executable is named - WindowsXPMode_en-us.exe (472 Mb)

Please note the following caveats before downloading these files to ensure you can take advantage of Windows

7 XPMode virtual machine.

Hard Drive space

If your the sort of geek who likes to partition your hard drive bear in mind you are creating two operating

1 2 3 4 5 6 ... 17 18

Summary of Contents

Page 1 - Overview

Installing Meade AS in a Win 7 XPMode environment Overview Following a request for any group members experience of installing Meades Autostar Suite

Page 2 - Installation Walkthrough

You should see a balloon in the XP Mode to tell you the device has been found and if you didn’t see it earlier a balloon in W7 telling you a virtuali

Page 3 - Walkthrough (Finally!)

Installing AutoStar Suite As stated earlier I installed from a network share but you can of course just insert the Meade cd into the cd drive (ignore

Page 4

Install Envisage Once again the install procedure is as for XP so follow the steps below:  On the Meade cd double click the Envisage setup file 

Page 5

 The Installation Complete screen displays Click “Finish”  The Software Update Wizard (Redist) 4.5 screen displays Click “Install”  When the Ins

Page 6

Firing it all up Do not connect scope or DSI yet! Click on the Autostar icon, a Windows security warning displays. Click “Unblock” on this screen to a

Page 7

Connecting the DSI Pro With Autostar Suite now connected we can connect the Meade camera, in my case the DSI Pro II Mono. Plug the camera in an avail

Page 8

Next click on the XPMode USB tab and in the dropdown should be listed the new device, in this case it is listed as “ EZ-USB FX2” Click on "Attac

Page 9

With Envisage fully setup this is the sort of thing you should be seeing, telescope tracking successfully, drizzle doing it’s thing and all with decen

Page 10

Issues to note Use only XPMode rather than running the 32 bit app Virtual PC gives you the option to run the 32 bit XP app directly from the Windows

Page 11 - Installing AutoStar Suite

systems and if you thought Windows XP could take up space consider my base install of Windows 7, XPMode and Autostar Suite required around 15 Gb! Yo

Page 12 - Install Envisage

5 Meade DSI Pro II 6 Belkin (?!?) Serial -USB adapter 7 8800 GTX Graphics Software Used 1 Windows 7 RC build 7100 2 VirtualPC (6.8Mb) 3 XPMod

Page 13

Note the boxed section viewed on the “CPU Technologies” tab, We’re good to go! With that confirmed you can now download the two software components V

Page 14 - Firing it all up

And it’s all done in a couple of minutes: If you now look at the Start – Program bar you can click on the Windows Virtual PC folder and se

Page 15 - Connecting the DSI Pro

Installing XPMode Note: If you decide (or have no choice due to the Win 7 version you have) to use an existing XP Pro installation disk instead pleas

Page 16

As this is effectively a “fresh” install of XP you are asked to accept the license by placing a tick in the box and clicking “Next” The insta

Page 17 - And there we have it

XP then begins setting up for your PC... And after about 15 minutes you have your 32 bit Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 OS runni

Page 18

USB\Serial Device Ok, once the excitements died down it’s time to setup a pretty critical piece of kit for our needs, the USBSerial Device driver. I b