Finally I am replacing my Vista laptop

[Carole]

With APT you can run 2 cameras and imaging sessions at the same time, without all that virtual machine setup Mac ,

In theory you can do this with Artemis too, but needing more USB ports than I actually had I tried to do it through a hub, and both cameras got stuck on download and flushing.  As soon as I put them back onto two laptops they were fine.

There are no problems with Windows 10. I have it on all of my devices and have to say it is the most reliable software MS has ever made.

Read many horrors stories Mike, including Mark getting an update in the middle of an imaging session.  People getting updates which messed up their installed software.  Updates can't be turned off, though apparently you can choose the time. 

I don't need all these problems.

Carole

[ApophisAstros]

Totally agree with that Mike,i have setup up manual updates on mine.
Roger

[Mac]

With APT you can run 2 cameras and imaging sessions at the same time, without all that virtual machine setup Mac ,

APT is PC only. I went to Mac about 3 years ago.

I still run XP on my laptop, all my processing is on the Mac, some through the virtual machine.
Far faster than my laptop, even in a virtual machine......

i do have windows 10 as a Boot camp. which annoyed me as the IOS wouldn't allow windows 7, which I adore.

Still........

[ApophisAstros]

Didn't realise it was pc only, i know they stopped updating xp a while ago ie security loopholes? Yea i liked W7 when it first came out as it never crashed or allowed all my software to run, however old!
Roger

[Carole]

I like W7 too which is why I prefer to stick to it for the time being.

Carole

[MarkS]

There are no problems with Windows 10. I have it on all of my devices and have to say it is the most reliable software MS has ever made.

Sure it is very reliable but yes there are big problems if you are using it to run unattended applications as is typical for astro-imaging.  Twice it has happened that the laptop has been in the observatory running applications (i.e. actually controlling imaging) and "Windows" has unilaterally decided to close those applications that I need to be running and install updates, which by the way took an hour or more.

Sure you can argue that I should have known in advance to set some schedule to preform those updates (I've done that now) but why should I have to second guess all the weird things that Windows might try to do in advance?

W7 is a known beast that I have control over it (I think).  W10 is an unknown monster that who knows what it's going to do - like overwriting my EQDIR Mount drivers every time it updates (I've now put them in a separate folder where I can re-install them each time).

Mark

[ApophisAstros]

Not sure why it would do that as never happened to me , changing edmod drivers on update i mean,
Roger

[RobertM]

W7 is a known beast that I have control over it (I think).  W10 is an unknown monster that who knows what it's going to do - like overwriting my EQDIR Mount drivers every time it updates (I've now put them in a separate folder where I can re-install them each time).

Mark

True but you are relying on backwards compatibility to keep your programs running and that will eventually run out, the same for old drivers such as the Prolific.  For mount drivers I use FTDI serial to USB chipsets and never have any issues, the com ports always keep the same number and the driver never disappears.  I only use Windows 10 now and wouldn't go back (but yes I have been bitten a couple of times).

Robert

[MarkS]

W7 is a known beast that I have control over it (I think).  W10 is an unknown monster that who knows what it's going to do - like overwriting my EQDIR Mount drivers every time it updates (I've now put them in a separate folder where I can re-install them each time).

Mark

True but you are relying on backwards compatibility to keep your programs running and that will eventually run out, the same for old drivers such as the Prolific.  For mount drivers I use FTDI serial to USB chipsets and never have any issues, the com ports always keep the same number and the driver never disappears.  I only use Windows 10 now and wouldn't go back (but yes I have been bitten a couple of times).

I'm not knowingly relying on backwards compatibility.  Maybe the Prolific driver I'm using is old but when W10 updates it to the latest Prolific driver, that's when it all stops working!  I guess there's some kind of bug in the new driver.  I end up uninstalling the updated driver and putting the old one back.  That doesn't make any kind of sense to me.

It's really lucky I methodically keep a separate copy of all my drivers otherwise I don't know what I would have done.

By the way - it is USB and not the old serial port thingy.  It's the HiTec Astro EQDir USB adapter for the EQ6.

Mark

[Carole]

This is precisely the sort of problems I am talking about with W10 that I have heard about.  I do not want to have these sort of problems and would rather run with a system that FOR ME works.

Carole

[MarkS]

This is precisely the sort of problems I am talking about with W10 that I have heard about.  I do not want to have these sort of problems and would rather run with a system that FOR ME works.

Carole

Yes, I'm seriously thinking about reverting back to W7 for the observatory.  I can't be doing with this hassle.

Mark

[MarkS]

With APT you can run 2 cameras and imaging sessions at the same time, without all that virtual machine setup Mac ,

APT is PC only. I went to Mac about 3 years ago.

But you run all your PC stuff on the Mac don't you?  So just run APT on your Windows virtual machine on your Mac.

Mark

[RobertM]

I also had this problem with the EQDirect cable (RS232 Serial to USB) Hitec Version.

I found this thread which 'might' help with the Prolific driver: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware/prolific-usb-to-serial-comm-port-windows-10/0a4f8e48-7135-4434-9d10-349c9ce87fcf?auth=1 .  There is another issue in that a lot of Prolific chip sets out there are fake - later versions of the driver software only work on the genuine chip set; I remember posting something about this a few years ago (I had masses of issues with the Hitec version and com ports).  I made some FTDI Chipset versions a while back and and have had no issues since.

I also have one device with a Prolific chip set that must be either a newer chipset or genuine as I've also not had any issues with Win10.

Apart from the updates issue which can be worked around I have had no other problems, blue screens also seem to be a thing of the past.

Robert

[Mac]

But you run all your PC stuff on the Mac don't you?  So just run APT on your Windows virtual machine on your Mac.

I could but the macs not in the observatory. Plus all the software that i use does everything i need it to do at the moment.

I could probably do with looking at whats new out there, but as and when i get time i'll probably start up again..

As for windows updates, As soon as all of my software was running on the laptop without any issues, i just disabled everything including updates, plus all of the services that were never needed.

I did try getting windows embedded to install on the laptop but gave up as that was a nightmare.

Mac.

[MarkS]

That makes complete sense!

As far as I know my cable is genuine Hitec so maybe that particular Hitec cable is not using the genuine Prolific.

Mark