Post by thread:[PIC] Older ICD2's under Windows 7 in XP mode

And it appears to work! There is one minor error, which is that you /must/ use the pre-installer or exactly follow the instructions to install the ICD drivers in the XP mode (just letting windows find and install the correct driver will NOT work). "{when you} attach your ICD2, windows 7 will pick up on it first and fail to install the drivers. Wait for this process to complete then click on the "USB" menu at the top of the XP virtual machine. Choose the unknown device, and "attach" it. You may be better off removing any superfluous USB devices before doing this to make identifying the ICD2 easier. Once you have attached the device, you will be prompted to install the driver from within the XP VM. Follow the normal procedure to install the ICD2 drivers" At this point, follow the EXACT MPLAB documentation to install the first driver. I had to run the "Update Installation and & Clean" procedure from \Microchip\MPLAB IDE\Utilities\MPUsbClean\MPUsbDocs\Update_Clean.htm and both update, then pre-install the driver before disconnecting and re-connecting the ICD2. "Once the driver has been installed, we aren't quite there. The trick here is that the ICD2 actually has 2 seperate USB devices associated with it. We will now need to once again go to the USB menu, locate the "unknown" device and attach it. Again we will need to let windows locate the correct driver for the device and install it. At this point, the ICD2 will function from within the XP virtual machine, along with the install of MPLab. One nice thing is, once you have completed this process, you can go Start -> All Programs -> Windows Virtual PC -> Windows XP mode Applications, and launch MPLab directly from there. The VM still needs to start up and run in the background, but the MPLab window looks like a native application, rather then running within the VM window (tho once you actually start using it, it'll become fairly obvious that a lot more is running in the background)." "One more thing to note. You will need to attach the USB device twice every time you launch MPLab (from the "USB" menu if you launch the VM first, by right clicking on the system tray icon if you launch MPLab directly)." -- James Newton 1-970-462-7764 {Original Message removed}

Quoting Sergey Dryga <spam_OUTsergeyTakeThisOuTdryga.us>: > James Newton <jamesnewton <at> massmind.org> writes: > >> >> And it appears to work! >> >> There is one minor error, which is that you /must/ use the pre-installer or >> exactly follow the instructions to install the ICD drivers in the XP mode >> (just letting windows find and install the correct driver will NOT work).. > > I had good success with VMWare Player. Usually I run it under > Linux, but works > similar on Win 7. I use ICD-U40 from CCS all the time in this arrangement, > checked old ICD2 which appeared to work (do not use it much). Aan aside to the XP mode in Win7. I do all uC development in a Windows XP VM. This lets me move it around between my WinXP laptop, Macbook and Win7 PC. It also means I can snapshot the VM before installing MPLAB or compiler upgrades, saving a lot of frustration! All the hardware I use works including a PICKit2 clone, a real PICKit3 and a number of USB->serial converters. I never have any trouble with the order things are plugged in. It is also nice to suspend the VM, upon restart VMware will reconnect any USB devices that were transferred to the host. Everything copes with rebooting & sleeping of either host or guest. I have a Saleae on order which is the only thing I'll end up running outside the VM, due to the warnings about USB speed. Davi

On Wed, Dec 14, 2011, at 09:53 AM, alan.b.pearce wrote: > > Note that you need W7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate. You can't install XP > > mode on Home Premium. > > I've virtualized an XP machine into VirtualBox, and it seems pretty > > stable. I did it to salvage a Borland C Builder installation, but I > > want to see if the old Hauppage PVR software still works if I attach the USB device > > to the virtual machine. > > Virtualizing existing machines: > > https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Migrate_Windows > > Joe W > > There is a work around for Home Premium at > www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-xp-mode-windows-7-win7,10213.html > > I haven't tried it, but it was recommended to someone else here at work > that was wanting to do it on Home Premium. I think that you end up with a time-limited trial if you use that method. But at least you can test it and see if it works for your application. Just make sure you are ready to try it out, don't install it and wait a month before testing it. I have one program that I must run in a Windows 98 VM using VMware Player. It was the only way to get it to work, but it works properly, even fullscreen on a wide laptop, so I'm happy. Power management seems to work, too, no "hot turbine" action. Cheerful regards, Bob -- http://www.fastmail.fm - Or how I learned to stop worrying and love email again

I'm noticing a serious fly in the ointment with this setup. I use a very nice and free version control / offsite backup software called Vault Standard from http://www.sourcegear.com It installs on my server and maintains all the code / projects I work on. It automatically keeps copies of all the prior versions so I can always look back over changes I've made and know what I did with each release. E.g. the customer finds a problem that wasn't there in a prior version and I can then compare the changes I made to try to see where the bug might have been introduced. It also provides an easy way to have an offsite backup (servers at the office, I work from home). When I want to work on some code, I "check it out" from Vault, (which then clears the read only bit on the local copy, and would keep other users from also modifying it if there are any other users) and then do my work, then check it back it. The Windows XP mode virtual computer under Windows 7 has a virtual hard drive image stored as a file on the real Win7 hard drive which can not be directly accessed from Win7 (as far as I can tell). But the XP machine can access the real hard drive as if it were a share from another computer on the network. So... the Win7 Vault directory is shared to the XP machine where MPLAB runs. And here is the problem: The compiles take /forever/ (like 10 minutes) if I try to directly work on the files via the share from the real hard drive. I have to copy the files to the virtual hard drive on the XP machine, then do the work, then copy them back. The check out/in thing is enough of a pain by itself without the copy in/out of VM. So, searching the net for this issue, I find a number of people have said that there is a known issue with the XP virtual machine's virtual network adapter and the Win7 network system related to something called TCP Off Loading. This is where the main CPU of the machine lets the little controller in the NIC do things like calculate checksums, as a minimum, or as much as running the entire TCP/IP stack. Apparently, that doesn't work well with the virtual NIC in the XP Mode Machine: social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprovirt/thread/b8061768 -c173-4730-bebb-c5d79a1c9606 social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/zh/w7itprovirt/thread/fd112f3b-4f dc-4544-8545-2d2f5253f433 They say you can turn it off system-wide by editing the registry {Use at your own risk and only if you are comfortable with editing the registry! You can seriously screw up your computer if you don't know what you are doing in regedit!} To turn off TCP Offloading, add a DWORD value in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Tcpip\Parameters label it DisableTaskOffload , and change the value to 1, then reboot. I tried that and it made no difference. Searching the Microchip forums, I found this post: http://www.microchip.com/forums/tm.aspx?tree=true&high=&m=623561&mpage=2# Which seems to indicate there is a problem with MPLAB when the source files reside on a network drive. At this point, I guess I will have to install Vault into the XP mode machine and separate my code into PIC stuff (which I will pickup with Vault to the virtual hard drive from inside the XP mode machine) and everything else (which I will pickup in the real Win7 machine). -- James Newton .....jamesnewtonKILLspam@spam@massmind.org ________________________________________ From: piclist-bouncesKILLspammit.edu [.....piclist-bouncesKILLspam.....mit.edu] On Behalf Of James Newton [EraseMEjamesnewtonspam_OUTTakeThisOuTmassmind.org] Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 7:28 PM To: 'Microcontroller discussion list - Public.' Subject: RE: [PIC] Older ICD2's under Windows 7 in XP mode And it appears to work! There is one minor error, which is that you /must/ use the pre-installer or exactly follow the instructions to install the ICD drivers in the XP mode (just letting windows find and install the correct driver will NOT work). "{when you} attach your ICD2, windows 7 will pick up on it first and fail to install the drivers. Wait for this process to complete then click on the "USB" menu at the top of the XP virtual machine. Choose the unknown device, and "attach" it. You may be better off removing any superfluous USB devices before doing this to make identifying the ICD2 easier. Once you have attached the device, you will be prompted to install the driver from within the XP VM. Follow the normal procedure to install the ICD2 drivers" At this point, follow the EXACT MPLAB documentation to install the first driver. I had to run the "Update Installation and & Clean" procedure from \Microchip\MPLAB IDE\Utilities\MPUsbClean\MPUsbDocs\Update_Clean.htm and both update, then pre-install the driver before disconnecting and re-connecting the ICD2. "Once the driver has been installed, we aren't quite there. The trick here is that the ICD2 actually has 2 seperate USB devices associated with it. We will now need to once again go to the USB menu, locate the "unknown" device and attach it. Again we will need to let windows locate the correct driver for the device and install it. At this point, the ICD2 will function from within the XP virtual machine, along with the install of MPLab. One nice thing is, once you have completed this process, you can go Start -> All Programs -> Windows Virtual PC -> Windows XP mode Applications, and launch MPLab directly from there. The VM still needs to start up and run in the background, but the MPLab window looks like a native application, rather then running within the VM window (tho once you actually start using it, it'll become fairly obvious that a lot more is running in the background)." "One more thing to note. You will need to attach the USB device twice every time you launch MPLab (from the "USB" menu if you launch the VM first, by right clicking on the system tray icon if you launch MPLab directly)." -- James Newton 1-970-462-7764 {Original Message removed}

Your explanation of Vault jives with the general philosophy of of version control software and benefits thereof. But if you have a virtual network on your virtual XP, I would think you would want to check the files out directly to the XP machine on which you do the work. The only tangible difference in the <plug> VCS that I use (SubVersion) is that it doesn't lock files </plug> so I can check them out anywhere I want to and even forget that I did. But in your case, unless they need to be on the host machine's disk for some other reason, I would just skip that step and go directly to the XP "disk". Barry On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 8:19 AM, James Newton <jamesnewtonspam_OUTmassmind.org>wrote: {Quote hidden}> I'm noticing a serious fly in the ointment with this setup. > > I use a very nice and free version control / offsite backup software called > Vault Standard from > http://www.sourcegear.com > It installs on my server and maintains all the code / projects I work on. > It > automatically keeps copies of all the prior versions so I can always look > back over changes I've made and know what I did with each release. E.g. the > customer finds a problem that wasn't there in a prior version and I can > then > compare the changes I made to try to see where the bug might have been > introduced. It also provides an easy way to have an offsite backup (servers > at the office, I work from home). > > When I want to work on some code, I "check it out" from Vault, (which then > clears the read only bit on the local copy, and would keep other users from > also modifying it if there are any other users) and then do my work, then > check it back it. > > The Windows XP mode virtual computer under Windows 7 has a virtual hard > drive image stored as a file on the real Win7 hard drive which can not be > directly accessed from Win7 (as far as I can tell). But the XP machine can > access the real hard drive as if it were a share from another computer on > the network. So... the Win7 Vault directory is shared to the XP machine > where MPLAB runs. > > And here is the problem: The compiles take /forever/ (like 10 minutes) if I > try to directly work on the files via the share from the real hard drive. I > have to copy the files to the virtual hard drive on the XP machine, then do > the work, then copy them back. The check out/in thing is enough of a pain > by > itself without the copy in/out of VM. > > (snip