GearHeads Corner

Hi All:

  These past weeks I have been working on a couple of fronts to try
to repair a situation for at least 2 people that Vexx will not run
on their Win10 machines. Well, one person cant run Vexx, the other
cant run either Gearotic or Vexx.
  Each problem seems unique in symptoms but I couldn't solve
either as yet. In the process of all this I have recompiled all
the software to various levels and in various software kits
to see if any of that makes a difference, none did. Im suspecting
some sort of Kernal error but haven't found it yet.

  I have however, compiled Vexx to be a dynamic instead of
statically linked program thinking it may help Win10 users in
general to allow real time linkage to the run-time libraries
rather than having it built in.

  As a result a new Vexx is released a bit sooner than I had planned
and contains a cycloidic reduction module for designing stages
of a cycloidic gear planetary mechanism.

  The video will hopefully be done this week as the debugging
has slowed. These changes are in the Dev version and the MSI installer
version  of the install packages.

Id appreciate if anyone cannot run Vexx they post here
and let me know as well as the symptom. Questions on the Cycloidal Module may be
asked as well while I get the video prepared to show how it works.
(Cycloidal is a button next to Clubfoot Escapements).

Hope your New Year is starting off well,

Thx
Art

 

I just downloaded the latest version of Vexx on Windows 10. Here's what I get when I try to run it.

Art,
See photo.
"This App can't run on your PC""This App can't run on your PC"
Hessel

Thx:

  I will update back to its original build in a few minutes.

Art

Thanks for the  fast responce.

Thx to Jim as well for his testing with me this week. While we didnt solve the problem at the
time, this failed release gave me a hint and I was able to fix the error. The now online version
in the msi and dev versions should work OK in Win10.

  Take note the cycloidic is not yet complete but I didn't want to remove the access on this release.
It defaults to metric inputs otherwise works fine though simulation must be toggled if the module is
closed to restart it again.

Thx, I will update to a competed module shortly.

Art

Art,

I now realise that the error message from W10 above is likely nonsense:

Windows defender blocked the download. AVG mentioned the well known virus warning.
Within minutes always AVG reports back that you are OK ?:-).

But confusing is that after "saying" to windows defender that all is OK you see in your download map the new file.

BUT..., due to this actions of window defender that file is/was 0 bytes AND THAT gave the error I pictured above.
When you do a new download and give attention to the possibility" Download anyway" and check that the well known about 37 Mb is on your PC, it's all OK and installs.

I did this ~3 minutes ago, so it could be a new/replaced  version, but you can see the times of these messages and decide what is what.

Hessel

Hessel:

  I find the msi version of the download works better in Win10.

Art

Art,
Installs without problems here.
Hessel

  I find the msi version of the download works better in Win10.

me too

Art

My system runs Win10.  I downloaded the exe versions of both Gearotics and Augie.  They installed with no problem and no virus warnings were raised.  Windows does warn that the gearotics file is not from a trusted  source but that is easily overcome by telling Win10 to install it anyway.

I haven't used  Gearotics, Vexx, and the Augie vector processor for nearly a year.  I plan to regression test the latest version with some of my previously published simulation models (tower clock, gravity escapement, walking man etc.)  If I find any operational issues I'll mention it under the appropriate topic.

Bill Michael

Problem free install here, W10 64b Insider Preview (think it's currently the slow ring), other than the usual Art's a potential scoundrel messages

Kirk

To update, used the MSI installer version; worked fine.  Art, you may recall before the last release, for reasons still unknown: I was unable to install on my Win10 machine for quite some time - but that impediment disappeared as mysteriously as it had arose.  But, having got up the nerve to install the latest at the risk of failure I am pleased to report G2 30.17000 and Vexx 2.24 (at least as each version number is reported thru the "?" or help/about, respectively).  Hoping those reflect the latest and greatest. 
Regards,
Brian.

Minor, in the about menu, the about box header, and the about box message Vexx is spelled vecs.  Also the copyright date is 2017

Kirk

Just my 2 cents worth, Windows 10 can for some inexplicable reason loose or corrupt its own environment variable. Its well worth while checking to make sure your systems variables are ok.

Type "env" in the search bar of win10 tab will open up with system properties - advanced - bottom left you'll see environment variables.

missing .dll's general culprit are antivirus programs, switch them off before installing or disable for a period of time. Kaspersky in my case will allow me to shut it off for eg 5min 10min etc and will auto enable itself after that time expires.

Most common .dll's can be downloaded and just dumped into windows/system32.

Another culprit can be windows 10 UAC which is found in Control Panel - User Accounts. Since the first day it asked me if I was sure I wanted to install something I switched it off. It's not necessary to have it running serves no useful purpose apart from annoying you and making it harder to install some software.

If all else fails, boot into safe mode and install. Safe mode is generally a best bet to find out if its win10 or something else thats causing installation issues.

Most cases you will find 99.9% of any software will install, the rest is generally user error, under spec pc's, anti virus software, UAC, corrupted environment links.

If you have been running your windows system for a while and have a habit of trying things out, its also not such a bad idea to do a

sfc /scannow command from the Dos Prompt.

What that will do is have a look at your windows environment and restore system files that might be missing or corrupt, depending on your system it can take a while, mine generally finishes its scan within 15 odd minutes.

I recently spent nearly a day trying to have windows not tell me that it has installed the best drivers for my system, which was not allowing me to test a piece of software which required specific Video/Gfx drivers.

Coders like Art do a pretty good job creating software that will run on 10's of thousands of computers all of which are never the same.
Coders also are an animal to themselves, they usually have a Green Screen and don't need human interaction :P~

Cheers and greeting from the colonies downunder,

Steve

Steve:

Thank you, a usefull archive of how to troubleshoot some of these types of issues.
They are the bane of coders and its amazing how few will have trouble and how
inexplicable those problems can be.


Art