New Computer having trouble withVirtualVP

[tnwxman]

Hi,

My older computer mother board quit. Luckily I was able to move the hard drive to the new computer. The new computer runs windows 7 Premium 64 bit the previous Vista. Therefore I have been moving or downloading again programs to the new computer. I did a new install of Virtualvp. It (virtualvp) connects to the weatherlink datalogger on com 3. I also loaded and installed NV8VBvCOM. I cannot get weatherlink, VWS, or WD connected to Virtualvp. I had it working on the previous computer but no success on the this computer. I have the configuration set in NV8VBvCOM to com6 -com16, through com9 - com19. I would appreciate help in getting this back up and working. You do not realize how much time you put into setting a computer until it goes down and you have load a new one.

Best regards,

Bob

[Weather Display]

use the TCP/IP connections instead

[saratogaWX]

The problem may be that the N8VBvCom Driver is a 32 bit Virtual COM driver only, and drivers in Windows7 are required to be signed for them to work.  On my Windows7 test system, I had to install the (paid) version of Eterlogic VSPE ( http://www.eterlogic.com/Products.VSPE.html ) to generate the port pairs for use with COM emulation.  That works just fine.

On WinXP, I'd used the N8VBvCom drivers for years.. they just wouldn't work on Windows7 (since they are not signed with a Microsoft certificate).

Hope this helps...

Best regards,
Ken

[tnwxman]

Hi Ken,

Thank you. If you do not mind can you help me with the setup. I purchased VSPE. The Davis Console (datalogger) com port is 3. I want to run Weather Link, Weather Display, and Virtual Weather Station using VirtualVP. Please advise on settings. If you wish you can send the insctruction through e-mail instead of the forum.

Thanks,

Bob

[saratogaWX]

Hi Bob,

I use a saved config file and start the program with StartWatch before I start VirtualVP.

Here's the StartWatch setup:

Program: C:\Program Files (x86)\Eterlogic.com\Virtual Serial Ports Emulator\VSPEmulator.exe
Params: c:\winapps\_ports.vspe -hide_splash -minimize
Start: Immediately after StartWatch starts
Tick: Don't start another copy if running

The _ports.vspe file is attached as a .zip

It creates port pairs of:

COM5 - COM15
COM6 - COM16
COM7 - COM17
COM8 - COM18

The COM15-COM18 are the ports used by VirtualVP, and the COM5-COM8 are the ports used by the weather software.

Hope this helps...

Best regards,
Ken

[tnwxman]

Hi Ken,

Thanks. I do not use starwatch (maybe I should?). I need detail instructions on how to set up the emulation in VPSE (com 5 - com 15 etc.). Sorry but I am not that versed when it gets to this type of set-up.

Bob

[George Richardson]

Bob,
I think Startwatch has now become Freeware so you might want to look into it.
FWIW
George

[tnwxman]

Ken, Thank you. I figured it out and now everything is working.

George, Thank you have download such (as Ken mentioned) and will take a look.

Best regards,

Bob

[saratogaWX]

Hi Ken,

Thanks. I do not use starwatch (maybe I should?). I need detail instructions on how to set up the emulation in VPSE (com 5 - com 15 etc.). Sorry but I am not that versed when it gets to this type of set-up.

Bob

Hi Bob,
The zipped _ports.vspe file is my configuration and will do (I think) what you want for the port pairs

COM5 - COM15
COM6 - COM16
COM7 - COM17
COM8 - COM18

Setup VirtualVP for  COM15-COM18 , and use the the COM5-COM8 for the ports used by the weather software and it should work.

The StartWatch setup of

Program: C:\Program Files (x86)\Eterlogic.com\Virtual Serial Ports Emulator\VSPEmulator.exe
Params: c:\winapps\_ports.vspe -hide_splash -minimize
Start: Immediately after StartWatch starts
Tick: Don't start another copy if running

contains all the info for StartWatch to load-and-run the VSPE program with the _ports.vspe file controlling the emulation.
It's important to have it be before VirtualVP in the startup sequence otherwise the connections might not be made.

Best regards,
Ken

[tnwxman]

Hi Ken,

Great! This will be very helpful.

Best regards,
Bob

[Triviakid]

I will be trying to get Virtual VP to work on a Window 8 machine.   I currently can run both WeatherLink and VWS on this machine.   Any tips on what I will have to do in order to get Virtual VP to work?   I have actually tried some things by remotely connecting to my home machine from work but so far can't seem to get Virutal VP to connect to/activate the virtual ports.  I did install N8VBvCom but not sure how to configure it.  After reading some of the threads it may be because it is a 32-bit driver.   However, in Device Manager I do see a virtual serial port.  FYI, my Davis Vantage Pro 2 is using the USB Datalogger.

Thanks!

[saratogaWX]

I found the N8VBvCom drivers (which worked fine on my WinXP system) wouldn't work at all on Windows7 (and likely not on Windows8) for the reason that they are unsigned 32-bit drivers.

I had to purchase and use the VSPE drivers instead with the VSPE ports setup from this post to get it to work at all.  Make sure your USB->Serial is also a signed driver so the feed to VirtualVP will work.

Best regards,
Ken

[Triviakid]

I guess I'll have to break down and purchase the signed 64-bit port emulator.   Too bad someone doesn't offer a free program for this.

[tnwxman]

I got Starwatch to work with the exception it will not launch my configuration file for VPSE. It starts VPSE but it does not load the ports. My port configuration file is called weather com ports.vspe and is located in C:\Users\User\Documents. The parameter setting I have in Starwatch for VPSE is Params: C:\Users\User\Documents\weather com ports.vspe -hide_splash -minimize

What am i doing wrong?

How can I minimize weather link, weather display, VWS, SebecTec IP Cam, WXSIMATE, and WXSIM through Starwatch after the program launches do I use the -hide_splash -minimize parameter?

Also I just discovered another problem. I cannot get back into Starwatch I must have the setting for if already running to exit or after programs load exit program. How do I get Starwatch to stay open so I can do more editing. Where does starwatch save its config file? I found the ini file and changed the autoexit from 1 to 0 and now I can get into starwatch.

Appreciate the help.

Best regards.

Bob

[saratogaWX]

Given that command lines use spaces to delimit arguments, you may have to enclose the file name in double quotes like:

"C:\Users\User\Documents\weather com ports.vspe" -hide_splash -minimize

in order for the string to be interpreted correctly.  It's why I avoid using spaces in file names

Best regards,
Ken

[tnwxman]

Hi Ken,

Well no space seemed like the way to go to keep things simple. So taking your lead I renamed the file with no spaces and now everything works great.

Thank you for your help, much appreciated.

Bob