How to get other software to work with LT-40 on Vista

[chakalakasp]

Noticed a lot of questions about this an no real answers. I discovered one the other day; I'm a storm chaser who needs to split the GPS feed to multiple mapping applications, and none of those see the USB puck. As most know, Delorme has released a serial emulator:

http://www.delorme.com/support/supportt ... spx?id=319

However, this emulator is an utter piece of crap as far as software goes. I'm a bit surprised Delorme is willing to put their name on it, but whatever. This emulator works well for XP, but fails out of the gate on any version of Vista running User Account Control (which is enabled by default on all Vista versions). To get this piece of crap emulator working on Vista, you must do the following:

Go into the start menu, go down to the search box at the bottom, and type in "Delorme". Don't hit enter, just wait for the stuff to pop up at the top of the start window. Up there, you will see a program called "SerEmul". Right click it, and go to properties. Click the Compatibility tab. Check the box that says "run this program as an administrator", then click OK. Restart. Upon restart, Vista will tell in the lower right taskbar when you when you login that it blocked the program from running (probably a virus prevention measure). What you want to do is click the box where it tells you that, then tell it to run the program. After this, you close the Delorme Serial Emulator that resides in your taskbar and then run it again (basically, the Serial Emulator must be restarted). That's it, you're done -- it should work now. Every time you reboot you'll need to go to the taskbar and unblock the program and then restart the serial emulator, but it's not the end of the world. So far I've had no problems, though the docs that come with the program itself says that it doesn't like coming out of sleep mode. I've got the puck running three seperate software applications at once; Delorme SA2009, a mobile radar program, and a GPS reporting program for storm spotting.

The alternate, easier solution is to disable Windows User Accounts Control. But this leaves your system much more open for viruses/trojans. Personally, I prefer the short dance of commands at startup to leaving my whole computer open.

I wish the emulator were coded in a way that wasn't so fundementally flawed and incompatible with the current version of Windows, but there you have it. This is what you must do if you want your purchased puck to function correctly with any application other than Delorme.

[Twins2xPlus1]

Sounds like a Vista issue to me. I'm no computer genius, but based on what you've said, once the user tells Vista that the program is ok to run it works fine; and it works well with XP. I wonder if there's something on Microsoft's side that could be corrected? I'm not defending either company, but I do have similar experiences working with clients running applications in both an XP environment and on Vista. Personally, I'd dump Vista and stick with XP or go to a Mac. (I love those commercials!).

Good luck and have fun dodging the rain drops.

[chakalakasp]

Sounds like a Vista issue to me. I'm no computer genius, but based on what you've said, once the user tells Vista that the program is ok to run it works fine; and it works well with XP. I wonder if there's something on Microsoft's side that could be corrected? I'm not defending either company, but I do have similar experiences working with clients running applications in both an XP environment and on Vista. Personally, I'd dump Vista and stick with XP or go to a Mac. (I love those commercials!).

Good luck and have fun dodging the rain drops.

It's not a Vista "issue", it's how Vista fundamentally works by compartmentalizing programs to keep them from wrecking the entire computer. If you code software that is supposed to be Vista compatible (and current Delorme software supposedly is), then you code it in a way where this is not an issue. Microsoft is not going to change their entire operating system architecture so that one crappy Delorme program.

Moderator Note.....
Statements dealing with any country in relation to the word crap, is not supported in these Forums, and was removed. You should quit using Microsoft code if that's how you feel, as it was written by good folks from all countries.

[Dan Lawyer]

For your information, this code was written before Vista was even know to the general public, has never, and does not claim to be Vista compatible, and is no different than trying to run most any older program on Vista. Running as an Administrator has been a requirement since Vista came out, for most non-Vista programs that deal with any internal system type functions. There are at least 20+ topics about this in this forum alone from folks trying to run older DeLorme programs on Vista. Anybody that researched Vista before jumping into the bowels of the beast, should know this.

Glad you finally figured it out, but curious why you would want to use...to quote you...

However, this emulator is an utter piece of crap

such a piece of crap code. Why don't you write your own, or go buy one of the other Vista compatible serial emulators.

Don't get too close to a tornado

[chakalakasp]

Then patch the code. Or at least be honest with users up front that the puck won't work with any other app on any other Microsoft OS later than XP. The serial emulator is the solution that tech points all users to for getting any Delorme puck to work with any other software application. But it simply does not work with Vista, and a quick Google finds more than half a dozen forums on the internet asking this very same question and getting no answers.

As a customer of six years with Delorme products, I likely would not have sunk $80 on a puck of theirs had I known that they have no intention of making it work with Vista applications (or mentioning this fact anywhere on the box). My 6 year old half-broke Garmin Legend worked better with Vista than this puck! When a device says "NMEA compliant" and "Microsoft Vista" on the side of the box, it darn well better be able to talk to more than one Vista software application!

BTW, I do have another Vista compatible serial emulator -- GPSGate. AND IT CAN'T FIND THE LT-40. Because apparently the only serial emulator on the planet that knows how to hear the "NMEA Compliant" LT-40 is the Delorme serial emulator.

[chakalakasp]

Moderator Note.....
Statements dealing with any country in relation to the word crap, is not supported in these Forums, and was removed. You should quit using Microsoft code if that's how you feel, as it was written by good folks from all countries.

I'm not knocking the country, I'm knocking the specific coders of this product. I suspect that Microsoft uses *talented* people from all over the world to code their products, which is why you don't get error messages from their products like "Very Strange: Attempt to disowned by driver after WIN32 Checks Out. Disown attempt ignored", which is an example of an an error message that some are getting with Delorme Serial Emulator. There are quite a few people reporting that this program is actually capable of BSODing Vista, which is quite a feat.

[dsells]

I'm in the process of trying your fix with my laptop. I get Erro 4, contact your vendor, and OEM data error path -2 when i plug the gps in. We'll see if this can fix the problem so I can use it at work again.

[dsells]

I'm in the process of trying your fix with my laptop. I get Erro 4, contact your vendor, and OEM data error path -2 when i plug the gps in. We'll see if this can fix the problem so I can use it at work again.

Well that was quick. It seems to have worked. I didn't need to restart after the install and changing the properties. Did close and restart the emulator though.

If I ever run into you irl remind me to buy you a beer. Awesome solution, been fighting with Pharos to replace my GPS that came with MS S&T 2007. Had problems with it overheating from day 1, returned to them and go figure they found no problem. Of course they aren't using it for 8-10 hours straight either. Again, thank you sir.

[albertfattal]

Its really REALLY time for DeLorme to redesign thier Serial Emulator, and make it 64 bit compatible

[suneva]

After Emulator is installed of course:

[from chaka's post, ty]
Go into the start menu, go down to the search box at the bottom, and type in "Delorme". Don't hit enter, just wait for the stuff to pop up at the top of the start window. Up there, you will see a program called "SerEmul for DeLorme Serial Emulator". Right click it, and select properties. Click the Compatibility tab.

[my experiment]
Under "Compatibility Mode" I checked "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" Made sure "Windows XP (Service Pack 2)" was selected.

Exited and restarted the Emulator and it worked.

At least for now...