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From: David Brown on 26 Apr 2010 02:54
On 23/04/2010 21:39, Rich Webb wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Apr 2010 10:19:07 -0700 (PDT), Wastrel
> <stephensdigital(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Apr 21, 1:08 pm, Jon Beniston<j...(a)beniston.com> wrote:
>>> It's running ok for me on Windows 7 64-bit.
>>>
>>> What particular part of the software are you having problems with?
>>>
>>> Jon
>>
>> Well it installs alright, but Altium Designer 6 can't find it -
>> whereas it did on my XP box. One problem is that Windows 7 likes to
>> put 32 bit legacy programs under Program FIles(x86), but Quartus won't
>> install there because it can't handle spaces or special characters in
>> it's filenames.
>
> Tell it to use the 8.3 name for the directory (one way of seeing this is
> to do a "dir /X" from a command prompt). For the directory above, the
> name would be "c:\progra~2\".
>

Alternatively, avoid "Program Files" or "Program Files (x86)" like the
plague - these are seriously stupid path names MS has chosen.

When installing almost any new software, you have a free choice of the
installation path - if you think you might ever want to refer to the
program or its files by path name (such as the command line), use
something like "c:\Progs\" as the base instead of "c:\Program Files".

I have no idea whether this will help you here or not, but it will avoid
the awkward installation path.

From: Wastrel on 26 Apr 2010 17:09
On Apr 25, 11:54 pm, David Brown <da...(a)westcontrol.removethisbit.com>
wrote:
> On 23/04/2010 21:39, Rich Webb wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Fri, 23 Apr 2010 10:19:07 -0700 (PDT), Wastrel
> > <stephensdigi...(a)gmail.com>  wrote:
>
> >> On Apr 21, 1:08 pm, Jon Beniston<j...(a)beniston.com>  wrote:
> >>> It's running ok for me on Windows 7 64-bit.
>
> >>> What particular part of the software are you having problems with?
>
> >>> Jon
>
> >> Well it installs alright, but Altium Designer 6 can't find it -
> >> whereas it did on my XP box. One problem is that Windows 7 likes to
> >> put 32 bit legacy programs under Program FIles(x86), but Quartus won't
> >> install there because it can't handle spaces or special characters in
> >> it's filenames.
>
> > Tell it to use the 8.3 name for the directory (one way of seeing this is
> > to do a "dir /X" from a command prompt). For the directory above, the
> > name would be "c:\progra~2\".
>
> Alternatively, avoid "Program Files" or "Program Files (x86)" like the
> plague - these are seriously stupid path names MS has chosen.
>
> When installing almost any new software, you have a free choice of the
> installation path - if you think you might ever want to refer to the
> program or its files by path name (such as the command line), use
> something like "c:\Progs\" as the base instead of "c:\Program Files".
>
> I have no idea whether this will help you here or not, but it will avoid
> the awkward installation path.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Well Altium support got back to me and said basically the same thing
you guys are: "It works OK for me"

They told me to verify that the system environment variable
"QUARTUS_ROOTDIR" pointed to the right folder - it did. I upgraded the
OS to Windows 7 Professional from "Home Premium" still no joy. When I
run Windows' compatibility troubleshooter it comes back with
"Incompatible Application" so there's something funky going on. I'm
wasting way to much time on this stupid problem, but it's not so easy
finding an XP box anymore so I'm not just sure what my next move is.
From: radarman on 26 Apr 2010 17:16
On Apr 26, 4:09 pm, Wastrel <stephensdigi...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On Apr 25, 11:54 pm, David Brown <da...(a)westcontrol.removethisbit.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On 23/04/2010 21:39, Rich Webb wrote:
>
> > > On Fri, 23 Apr 2010 10:19:07 -0700 (PDT), Wastrel
> > > <stephensdigi...(a)gmail.com>  wrote:
>
> > >> On Apr 21, 1:08 pm, Jon Beniston<j...(a)beniston.com>  wrote:
> > >>> It's running ok for me on Windows 7 64-bit.
>
> > >>> What particular part of the software are you having problems with?
>
> > >>> Jon
>
> > >> Well it installs alright, but Altium Designer 6 can't find it -
> > >> whereas it did on my XP box. One problem is that Windows 7 likes to
> > >> put 32 bit legacy programs under Program FIles(x86), but Quartus won't
> > >> install there because it can't handle spaces or special characters in
> > >> it's filenames.
>
> > > Tell it to use the 8.3 name for the directory (one way of seeing this is
> > > to do a "dir /X" from a command prompt). For the directory above, the
> > > name would be "c:\progra~2\".
>
> > Alternatively, avoid "Program Files" or "Program Files (x86)" like the
> > plague - these are seriously stupid path names MS has chosen.
>
> > When installing almost any new software, you have a free choice of the
> > installation path - if you think you might ever want to refer to the
> > program or its files by path name (such as the command line), use
> > something like "c:\Progs\" as the base instead of "c:\Program Files".
>
> > I have no idea whether this will help you here or not, but it will avoid
> > the awkward installation path.- Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -
>
> Well Altium support got back to me and said basically the same thing
> you guys are: "It works OK for me"
>
> They told me to verify that the system environment variable
> "QUARTUS_ROOTDIR" pointed to the right folder - it did. I upgraded the
> OS to Windows 7 Professional from "Home Premium" still no joy. When I
> run Windows' compatibility troubleshooter it comes back with
> "Incompatible Application" so there's something funky going on. I'm
> wasting way to much time on this stupid problem, but it's not so easy
> finding an XP box anymore so I'm not just sure what my next move is.

If you are running Win7 Pro, and your hardware supports
virtualization, you might consider installing the XP VM from
Microsoft. It's a full-function version of Windows XP SP3, and it runs
in a VM environment a bit like Parallels on the Mac. (IOW,
applications appear on the desktop like any other, rather than in a
separate VM window) Best of all, it's free for Win7 Pro and higher.

Of course, you would need to install both Altium and Quartus in the
VM, but that should replicate your old environment fairly closely. I
believe the VM is 32-bit only. While it will run on a 64-bit OS, you
will be limited to less than 4GB of RAM.

Note, I haven't tried it - since my only Win7 machine doesn't have the
right CPU support - but this is the sort of scenario it was meant for.
From: glen herrmannsfeldt on 26 Apr 2010 19:33
Wastrel <stephensdigital(a)gmail.com> wrote:
(snip)

> Well Altium support got back to me and said basically the same thing
> you guys are: "It works OK for me"

> They told me to verify that the system environment variable
> "QUARTUS_ROOTDIR" pointed to the right folder - it did. I upgraded the
> OS to Windows 7 Professional from "Home Premium" still no joy. When I
> run Windows' compatibility troubleshooter it comes back with
> "Incompatible Application" so there's something funky going on. I'm
> wasting way to much time on this stupid problem, but it's not so easy
> finding an XP box anymore so I'm not just sure what my next move is.

As I understand it, starting with Vista Windows won't run 16 bit
code anymore. It seems that a surprising amount of such code
still exists and causes problems, though I am a little surprised
it would happen in this case.

-- glen
From: Wastrel on 27 Apr 2010 15:29
On Apr 26, 4:33 pm, glen herrmannsfeldt <g...(a)ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> Wastrel <stephensdigi...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> (snip)
>
> > Well Altium support got back to me and said basically the same thing
> > you guys are: "It works OK for me"
> > They told me to verify that the system environment variable
> > "QUARTUS_ROOTDIR" pointed to the right folder - it did. I upgraded the
> > OS to Windows 7 Professional from "Home Premium" still no joy. When I
> > run Windows' compatibility troubleshooter it comes back with
> > "Incompatible Application" so there's something funky going on. I'm
> > wasting way to much time on this stupid problem, but it's not so easy
> > finding an XP box anymore so I'm not just sure what my next move is.
>
> As I understand it, starting with Vista Windows won't run 16 bit
> code anymore.  It seems that a surprising amount of such code
> still exists and causes problems, though I am a little surprised
> it would happen in this case.
>
> -- glen

First of all, thanks to everyone for all the on point suggestions -
much appreciated! Altium support got back to me last night with the
following:

"Check the 'Ignore version of vendor tools' in DXP---Preferences---
FPGA---Devices View.

It is common that FPGA Vendor releases leapfrog the Altium Designer
releases. So this setting will enable you to run with the Altera
Quartus release that did not exist when Summer09 was released. "

This did the trick, much to my relief. As grateful as I am to be back
up and running, I think this key information should have been included
in a help file, quick start guide or otherwise made available to the
hapless newbie...
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