Reading Archive Data Slow

[up10ad]

Steve,

I'm running v1.1.4.22 and just replaced my old VP with a VP 2 Plus.  I also moved the IIS and added a repeater so my reception is now much better.

However, the one issue I still have with the new station is the initial startup of VVP when it displays the progress bar for 'Reading Archive Data'.  It takes several minutes to complete this process and I have to delay startup of my software to allow it to complete.

Is this normal?  I have my communications with the console on Com1 at 19200 and my virtuals set to Com6 and 7.  I just enabled fast looping to see if it helps but it hasn't.



I'm still runing under Vista if that makes any difference.  Thanks for your help.

[tinplate]

No, that's not normal. In the VirtualVP folder are two files with names like archivecache.dat

Shut down VirtualVP, and then move those two files to a different place. That's better than just deleting them because I may have you send them to me. After you've moved them out of the VIrtualVP folder, restart VIrtualVP. It will take a while to for VVP to download the archive data because it has to rebuild its entire cache. After the cache is loaded, let VirtualVP run for around 10 minutes. Then shut it down and restart it. This time when it starts it should only take a couple seconds to get the archive from the console. If it takes longer than that, let me know.

Steve

[up10ad]

Well, I was hoping for the best but no such luck.  But I do have some information that may help.

I removed the two archivecache.dat files and restarted VVP.  It took a while and finally finished reading the archive data.  After 10 minutes I shut it down and restarted it.  Still took a long time.  I uninstalled the entire program and made sure the directory was removed, then downloaded it from your site again and installed.  It was a fresh install as it wanted the config information again.  I started it and it naturally took a while for the first startup.  After another 10 minutes I stopped and restarted it.  It again took several minutes to read the archive data. 

Since your comments suggest that it is a problem reading/writing or otherwise manipulating the archive files, I tried changing VVP to run as administrator (File|Properties|Compatibility|Privlege level|Run as administrator).  When set this way it loads the archive data in seconds and starts right away.  The only drawback is that it requires clicking on a confirmation dialog to begin running.

So, it seems that the changes MS made to the privlege levels of executable files in the Program Files folders in Vista is causing the problem.  Can you work around this?  I think MS suggests that the data support files like the archive files should be placed in the Program Data folder, or in the User|AppData folder?????

Hey, you're the wizard, I'm just trying to help.  Let me know what you find.

[edpnjax]

One thing you can do to eliminate most of the "new & improved" M$ security crap is reinstall outside of the Program Files folder

[tinplate]

I haven't made changes yet to VirtualVP to work better in a Vista environment, but the compatibility features of Vista "should" take care of that. Do you have the UAC feature of Vista disabled?

I run VirtualVP under Vista, but I have a nonstandard install for all my weather programs. This is because I only want those programs accessible to a single user. The way I did it is thus:

I created a user called "weather". I have Windows configured to automatically boot up and log into the weather account (and weather account does have a password). This means that if I have a power glitch, the system will come up and log into weather at which point StartWatch will run and get all my weather programs going again.

On the weather account's desktop I have two folders: WeatherPrograms and WeatherData. When I installed my various weather programs (including VirtualVP), I installed them all under the WeatherPrograms folder instead of "Program Files". When I configured the programs, I set them up to store the data in folders in WeatherData. Now it is very easy for me to backup my weather data. It's also easy to backup the whole weather setup. It's been awhile since I set it up, but if I remember correctly, you don't even need to do the enter Administrator password thing when doing the installs, since your aren't writing files to Admin only parts of the disk.

I do most of my work on this computer under a different user account. I just switch users out of the weather account (leaving it running) and then do my work. This separation makes it easier to keep other use of the computer from screwing up the smooth operation of the weather software. Also, the other users accounts don't have all the weather stuff in their start menu.

I really like it set up this way. Even after I make VirtualVP more Vista aware, I will still keep this exact same set up.

Steve

[up10ad]

Yep, I'll just reinatall in another folder.  I had UAC disabled but it isn't right now.

Thanks Steve.