Has anyone seen info on if or when 64 bit drivers will be available for DSI on Windows XP x64 or Vista?  It would be nice to use with AMD Turion64 or Intel chips laptops.

-John McSorley

John,

I can ask the folks at Meade but I am not aware of anything like this that they have in the works.  Does the current driver not work with the 64 bit system?  I use it on my Windows XP Pro Centrino Latptop.

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Stephen P. Hamilton
AutoStarSuite.Net Owner/Moderator
http://www.HamiltonAstronomy.com
King George Observatory
38° 21' 26" , -77° 03' 04"
Photos: My Photo Gallery

It does not work with either XP Pro x64 or Vista Ultimate RC1 x64.  AutoStar Suite fails during installation.  It can't find a suitable driver on XP x64.

Under XP Pro x86 (32 bit) on same laptop it works fine.  Just eventually I may not have option of running multiple versions of OS's and I'm leaning toward x64.

I contacted Customer service yesterday to inquire about the availability of these drivers only to be informed that the issue has not yet been presenred to the engineers. In otherwords, if you have a system running vista, you cannot and will not be able to run your Meade cameras for quite some time. That to me is an insult. Where is customer service? Where is customer support?

Manny

Just to let you guys know, I forwarded all of this on to Meade yesterday and will hopefully have an answer on the x64 issue soon.  I do know that you can run the AutoStar Software and Envisage under regular Vista though you will have to tell it which drivers to use since the drivers are not signed for Vista, just use the same ones as would be used for XP (C:\Program Files\Meade\AutostarSuite\Envisage\Driver\2k - xp folder)

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Stephen P. Hamilton
AutoStarSuite.Net Owner/Moderator
http://www.HamiltonAstronomy.com
King George Observatory
38° 21' 26" , -77° 03' 04"
Photos: My Photo Gallery

Stephen, do you know from first-hand expereince that those drivers work on Vista or is that what Meade said?  The reason I ask is that I have been using a DSI Pro on a WinXP notebook for quite awhile.  But, that notebook failed and I replaced it about 5 weeks ago with an Intel Core 2 Duo notebook running Vista Business.  Those drivers do not work on that system.  When installed, the Device Manager reports the DSI Pro as working properly.  And, starting Envisage shows a DSI Pro tab, so apparently Envisage also recognizes the DSI Pro.  But, Envisage immediately puts up a message box with "DSI Error", "Firmware command was rejected."

My solution was to create a virtual WinXP machine using VMware Workstation 6 (Beta) running on my Vista notebook.  All works fine with Envisage and DSI Pro installed on that virtual WinXP.  Also works fine on a desktop WinXP.  So, that confirms there is nothing wrong with my DSI Pro hardware or the drivers in WinXP, but that the drivers will not run on Vista.

All of the above was conveyed to Meade a month ago (Feb. 8, 2007, to be precise).  Since then I cannot get Meade to answer any further inquiries, such as when can I expect Vista drivers.

Dual-boots and virtual machines are fine for power-users, but Meade is a consumer company and those are not consumer solutions, nor are they free of cost.  And even for a power-user it is inconvenient to split your imaging software between real and virtual machines and moving image files around.  Meade really needs to produce working Vista drivers.  I share Manny's opinion that it is a breach of good faith for Meade to not support their products on present-day systems.

I will humbly retract those sentiments if somebody can tell me how to make the WinXP drivers work in Vista.

Jeff

All,

I just purchased a new PC running dual Intel core2 duo and Vista Premium and I got the DSI to work with no issues but my LPI driver will not be recognized by Vista and wants to install a totally different driver called "Trusted Webcam 14823".  See my post under LPI titled as "LPI & Vista".  I ave connected the DSI Pro several times to verify that it works and I have not trashed that camera's operation.

Also, the latest version of PartitionMagic 8.01 will not work on Vista either.  So I will try the VMware mentioned earlier to partition my drive. 

Thx, Karl

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Karl Stephenson

Hope you can help me too!   I have just installed autostar envisage CD that came with my DSI III colour. The camera works once then I get DSi.DSiDevice Exception: Firmware command was rejected.  then DSI error could not send command to camera.   I've uninstalled and reinstalled, added the .Net service pack and no progress - same error.  Also now I cant get my other camera going - DSI Pro.   The DSI 3 and DSI Pro tabs show up on the envisage screen but now both cameras show DSI error firmware command was rejected.   Same thing occurs with both laptop and observatory pc running windows XP

Any help will be appreciated

GlennB

Auckland NZ

I also have the DSI III Color and am surprised that the customer support has no clue as to what they are doing. I talked to them and told them specifically that I had VISTA 64Bit version that came installed on my brand new laptop.Final answer was for me to try the quick install guide which they sent me via email. It was so stupid.... I told them that it would not install the .net drivers and would fail out.

 So basically, I ended up buying a cheapy XP laptop from dell $350.00 and all is fine. But it would be nice to finally get support on Vista64 since more and more laptops are getting that installed for performance reasons when you go to 4 gigs of ram.

Program works on Vista32 but LPI fails out on Vista32. Does not run on 64bit version. It starts the install but bombs out when it gets to the .net driver install( I am assuming driver stuff). Other companies that are building Camera's are now supporting 64bit but MEADE isn't. Doesn't sound right to me.

Maybe now that they have finished the move to Mexico, they will have time to work on Customer issues instead of giving canned responses like most other companies do, just to get the angry customer off the phone. :)

The move to China will prbably have foreign help desks like so many other software companies that have abandoned higher paid personnel in the US

I rang Meade and was told to uninstall autostar, reinstall, download Envisage 7.05 from their website.

I've done that and everything is now working.

Thanks Meade!

GlennB

 

But is this on a 64bit system Vista or XP

Oops   - sorry  - this is on the system before 64 bit.    XP home edition.