Railpro Assistant V 2.0

[nodcc4me]

I vaguely remember Tim talking about that a while back. For many years he eschewed Windows altogether.

[G8B4Life]

I have no troubles at all with FireFox and anything on Ring's site, even when using the old web based downloading interface.

A note on RailPro Assistant 2.02, as I've mentioned in the software thread, the location of the storage file has changed. This is to negate the need to run RailPro Assistant with Administrator privileges. This means you might "loose" your RailPro Assistant data (program settings, downloaded and self created files) when you upgrade as I don't think the new version is able to migrate the contents of your storage file to the new location. I've not tested this part yet.

Now, all might not be lost however. The old storage file will possibly still exist in the old location which means that it should be able to be copied directly over to the new location. I'll have to run some tests to confirm this to make sure nothing else has changed between version 2.00 and 2.02.

- Tim

[William Brillinger]

what is the new location of the data file?

[G8B4Life]

The new location of the storage file is C:\ProgramData\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\

ProgramData is a hidden folder so you might have to adjust your folder viewing settings to see it. The storage file name remains the same, vis
RailProAssistantStorage.  For anyone not familiar see the picture in my post http://rpug.pdc.ca/index.php?topic=256.msg1726#msg1726

I haven't checked if anything else has changed yet, rather tired right now to concentrate on that so I'd really recommend anyone wishing to upgrade before I've checked that out to make a backup copy of your storage file if you have something to loose first before upgrading. I know I must sound like a broken record but if it doesn't migrate your settings and files to the new location and it wipes out the old file during installation then all your work is gone, too bad so sad.

- Tim

[William Brillinger]

I loaded the software as a full install and it is not saving changes to my data.
For example, I f I delete a stored image, and reopen RPA, the image is no longer deleted.

It seems to have remembered my login info and options from the old install, even though I chose "reinstall all".

[G8B4Life]

I loaded the software as a full install and it is not saving changes to my data.
For example, If I delete a stored image, and reopen RPA, the image is no longer deleted.

This is odd Bill, I have spent some time trying to replicate what you are experiencing but I can't do it, I can't make it fail in that way, but I haven't Windows 10 either.

It sounds like RPA still cannot access the storage file with the proper permissions to actually write to the file. You could try running it with Administrator privileges and see if it can then delete old files / save new files. Running RPA v2.02 without Administrator privileges works as intended on Win 7 at least. If it still doesn't work we can then try working on a new solution.

I've also done my other testing, there is nothing different about the storage file and what it contains between v2.00 and 2.02 except the location it's stored.

- Tim

[William Brillinger]

These steps have solved the problem I was having, but of course I lost my data file. Not a problem for me.

Delete folders:
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant
c:\Program Data\Ring Engineering

Remove the desktop icon
The do a RailPro Assistant install and choose Update.

BTW: Tim Ring says the only difference between "install all" and "update" is "install all" also loads the USB drivers for the older HC-1 and HC-2.

[nodcc4me]

RPA 2.02 is working and saving files to the storage folder at its new location but the old storage folder is gone. The I install routine must have deleted the folder. I will have to download all the files over again if I want them saved on the computer. I'm using Win10.

The HC-2 drivers were also installed using the update method when the program was first run.

[TwinStar]

These steps have solved the problem I was having, but of course I lost my data file. Not a problem for me.

Delete folders:
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant
c:\Program Data\Ring Engineering

Remove the desktop icon
The do a RailPro Assistant install and choose Update.

BTW: Tim Ring says the only difference between "install all" and "update" is "install all" also loads the USB drivers for the older HC-1 and HC-2.

Bill,

Thanks, this is exactly what I had to do to get it to install correctly. I'm running Mac OS X with Parallels 10 and Windows 7.

[LW93Rcode]

I just updated to v2.02.  Update went fairly smooth, except now my feature enable doesn't work.  Anyone else have that problem?

-Laurence

[William Brillinger]

That's pretty common for these kind of upgrades.  I wish the feature enable was simply tied to the account and was automatically re-enabled when you log in again.

You'll have to contact Ring Engineering to get them to put the Feature Enable back in your account so you can re-download it to your RPA & HC again.

[G8B4Life]

All,

I spent some time on this today. I've solved the problem with running RailPro Assistant 2.02 on WinXP (as I suspected it doesn't actually need Vista or greater). If Bill gives the ok I will upload the patched file to the forum. If Bill says no anyone who want's it can request it directly by PM'ing me. I could possibly create a patch  that anyone could run themselves but that would probably take more time than I'd be willing to spend on it.

It's definitely a use at your own risk proposition. I tested it and it works fine downloading files from Ring and into the HC for me. Your mileage could vary. There are no changes to the software's actual code, just the part that tells the OS what versions of Windows it can run on. If RE had spent a few seconds changing that in Visual Studio before compiling it'd have been WinXP compatible in the first place.

I do not know if the CI-1 software can be made to run on XP or not, I don't have it yet.

- Tim

[William Brillinger]

Go for it Tim!

[nodcc4me]

My little netbook is the perfect size to use by the layout. Tim, if you can get the new software to run in XP that would be awesome.

[G8B4Life]

I've uploaded the WinXP patched version of RailPro Assistant 2.02 to the RailPro Software Archive in the files section. You still need to install first by installing from Ring Engineering's website as usual. Basic instructions are provided with the patched file. No changes other than allowing the file to run on WinXP have been made to the patched software.

My little netbook is the perfect size to use by the layout. Tim, if you can get the new software to run in XP that would be awesome.

Al, I'll know more when I have the CI-1 and it's software but I imagine it'll do doable.

- Tim