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From: David Brown on 28 Apr 2010 04:40
On 26/04/2010 23:09, Wastrel 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.

I know you've already found the answer, but this is just for
completeness sake...

There are some suppliers that still produce systems with XP installed -
Dell being perhaps the best known. They refer to it as "Win 7 Pro
downgraded to XP", and charge extra for it. I think of it as "Win 7
/upgraded/ to XP", and think it is worth the money. There are many
tools in the embedded development world that don't play well with
anything other than XP. Win 7 64-bit works better than XP 64-bit, so if
you need more than 3.5 GB memory, Win 7 is a good choice. But other
than that I have seen no reason to pick Win 7 over XP, and XP is always
faster on the same hardware.

As has been suggested, an alternative is to use virtual machines. I
recommend Virtual Box - it's perhaps not quite as integrated as the "XP
mode" of Win 7 Pro, but it is much more flexible. It's also free and
cross-platform, and you can move the virtual machines between different
hosts.



From: Wastrel on 29 Apr 2010 13:16
On Apr 28, 1:40 am, David Brown <da...(a)westcontrol.removethisbit.com>
wrote:
> On 26/04/2010 23:09, Wastrel 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.
>
> I know you've already found the answer, but this is just for
> completeness sake...
>
> There are some suppliers that still produce systems with XP installed -
> Dell being perhaps the best known.  They refer to it as "Win 7 Pro
> downgraded to XP", and charge extra for it.  I think of it as "Win 7
> /upgraded/ to XP", and think it is worth the money.  There are many
> tools in the embedded development world that don't play well with
> anything other than XP.  Win 7 64-bit works better than XP 64-bit, so if
> you need more than 3.5 GB memory, Win 7 is a good choice.  But other
> than that I have seen no reason to pick Win 7 over XP, and XP is always
> faster on the same hardware.
>
> As has been suggested, an alternative is to use virtual machines.  I
> recommend Virtual Box - it's perhaps not quite as integrated as the "XP
> mode" of Win 7 Pro, but it is much more flexible.  It's also free and
> cross-platform, and you can move the virtual machines between different
> hosts.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

I'll have to look into some of these virtual machines. I'm sure this
won't be the only speedbump I hit doing embedded development under
Win7. What kind of performance hit can I expect? In the old days I
used to fool around with CPM 2.2/Z80 emulators under DOS and WINE
under Linux and my impression then was " well isn't that cute", but
never considered really working in that environment. I imagine they
have come a ways since then.

Bob
From: Leon on 29 Apr 2010 16:06
On 21 Apr, 21:03, Wastrel <stephensdigi...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> My XP box died the other day and was replaced by a 64 bit Windows7
> machine. Now my $%^&Quartus II software won't run, and Altera says
> Win7 ain't supported. Anybody know of a workaround? I'm developing on
> the Altera Cyclone III FPGA on the Altium Designer NanoBoard 3000.
>
> Thx,
>
> Bob


It works OK for me on my laptop with Win7 x64. I have it installed in
the default c:\Altera directory.

Leon
From: David Brown on 30 Apr 2010 05:28
On 29/04/2010 19:16, Wastrel wrote:
> On Apr 28, 1:40 am, David Brown<da...(a)westcontrol.removethisbit.com>

>> I know you've already found the answer, but this is just for
>> completeness sake...
>>
>> There are some suppliers that still produce systems with XP installed -
>> Dell being perhaps the best known. They refer to it as "Win 7 Pro
>> downgraded to XP", and charge extra for it. I think of it as "Win 7
>> /upgraded/ to XP", and think it is worth the money. There are many
>> tools in the embedded development world that don't play well with
>> anything other than XP. Win 7 64-bit works better than XP 64-bit, so if
>> you need more than 3.5 GB memory, Win 7 is a good choice. But other
>> than that I have seen no reason to pick Win 7 over XP, and XP is always
>> faster on the same hardware.
>>
>> As has been suggested, an alternative is to use virtual machines. I
>> recommend Virtual Box - it's perhaps not quite as integrated as the "XP
>> mode" of Win 7 Pro, but it is much more flexible. It's also free and
>> cross-platform, and you can move the virtual machines between different
>> hosts.- Hide quoted text -
>>
>> - Show quoted text -
>
> I'll have to look into some of these virtual machines. I'm sure this
> won't be the only speedbump I hit doing embedded development under
> Win7. What kind of performance hit can I expect? In the old days I
> used to fool around with CPM 2.2/Z80 emulators under DOS and WINE
> under Linux and my impression then was " well isn't that cute", but
> never considered really working in that environment. I imagine they
> have come a ways since then.
>
> Bob

If you are going to try virtual machines, I'd wait just a little bit
longer until Virtual Box 3.20 is out - it's in beta testing at the
moment. It has some nice new features such as better multiple monitor
support, faster guest booting and host-initiated execution of guest
programs.

Performance under VirtualBox is very good for most purposes - I use it
extensively for things like embedded Linux build systems that do a great
deal of compilation. Some software, such as graphics-intensive
software, is going to be slower - 3-D acceleration exists but is not
perfect and has limitations (don't expect to use the guest for running
modern 3D games). But for most purposes the overhead is no more than a
few percent.

For old DOS software, the most powerful emulator is DOSBOX. It doesn't
really matter if it has some overhead - a modern PC is still much faster
than a DOS-era machine.

WINE gives variable results depending on the system, the version of
WINE, and the program you want to run. For some software it works very
well, others not at all. If the software in question is a stand-alone
program it is typically fine, but if it interacts with many other
programs, or hardware drivers, it will have trouble. DirectX
acceleration works to some extent. But if the software runs okay, it is
may be faster than running natively on Windows - several of the key WINE
libraries are faster than the native Windows versions, and the WINE
programs take advantage of Linux's faster file system. Graphics, on the
other hand, will often be slower due to extra translation layers.
Number crunching will be the same - it runs natively on the processor.

From: Wastrel on 30 Apr 2010 13:43
On Apr 30, 2:28 am, David Brown <da...(a)westcontrol.removethisbit.com>
wrote:
> On 29/04/2010 19:16, Wastrel wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 28, 1:40 am, David Brown<da...(a)westcontrol.removethisbit.com>
> >> I know you've already found the answer, but this is just for
> >> completeness sake...
>
> >> There are some suppliers that still produce systems with XP installed -
> >> Dell being perhaps the best known.  They refer to it as "Win 7 Pro
> >> downgraded to XP", and charge extra for it.  I think of it as "Win 7
> >> /upgraded/ to XP", and think it is worth the money.  There are many
> >> tools in the embedded development world that don't play well with
> >> anything other than XP.  Win 7 64-bit works better than XP 64-bit, so if
> >> you need more than 3.5 GB memory, Win 7 is a good choice.  But other
> >> than that I have seen no reason to pick Win 7 over XP, and XP is always
> >> faster on the same hardware.
>
> >> As has been suggested, an alternative is to use virtual machines.  I
> >> recommend Virtual Box - it's perhaps not quite as integrated as the "XP
> >> mode" of Win 7 Pro, but it is much more flexible.  It's also free and
> >> cross-platform, and you can move the virtual machines between different
> >> hosts.- Hide quoted text -
>
> >> - Show quoted text -
>
> > I'll have to look into some of these virtual machines. I'm sure this
> > won't be the only speedbump I hit doing embedded development under
> > Win7. What kind of performance hit can I expect? In the old days I
> > used to fool around with CPM 2.2/Z80 emulators under DOS and WINE
> > under Linux and my impression then was " well isn't that cute", but
> > never considered really working in that environment. I imagine they
> > have come a ways since then.
>
> > Bob
>
> If you are going to try virtual machines, I'd wait just a little bit
> longer until Virtual Box 3.20 is out - it's in beta testing at the
> moment.  It has some nice new features such as better multiple monitor
> support, faster guest booting and host-initiated execution of guest
> programs.
>
> Performance under VirtualBox is very good for most purposes - I use it
> extensively for things like embedded Linux build systems that do a great
> deal of compilation.  Some software, such as graphics-intensive
> software, is going to be slower - 3-D acceleration exists but is not
> perfect and has limitations (don't expect to use the guest for running
> modern 3D games).  But for most purposes the overhead is no more than a
> few percent.
>
> For old DOS software, the most powerful emulator is DOSBOX.  It doesn't
> really matter if it has some overhead - a modern PC is still much faster
> than a DOS-era machine.
>
> WINE gives variable results depending on the system, the version of
> WINE, and the program you want to run.  For some software it works very
> well, others not at all.  If the software in question is a stand-alone
> program it is typically fine, but if it interacts with many other
> programs, or hardware drivers, it will have trouble.  DirectX
> acceleration works to some extent.  But if the software runs okay, it is
> may be faster than running natively on Windows - several of the key WINE
> libraries are faster than the native Windows versions, and the WINE
> programs take advantage of Linux's faster file system.  Graphics, on the
> other hand, will often be slower due to extra translation layers.
> Number crunching will be the same - it runs natively on the processor.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Interesting David. Thanks for the info.

Bob
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