Does Protel 99 SE work with Windows Vista ?

It should do.

I write PCBCAD software and mine works great under Vista.

I even wrote a new version using .net v3 that only works with XP and Vista.

Wow, those are the ugliest schematics and pcb layouts I've seen in a long time. And it's hard to read much of the red-on-blue website text without getting a headache. If the tools are any good, a better presentation would help sell them.

John

I have to second the other poster's comments. The web site colors are hideous !. The software looks good though. Better presentation may sell more. Good luck.

Actually, the website and the software looks hideous.

Good old Tango beats it, hands down, and it is a ten year old plus package.

I made the mistake of upgrading to Vista and have had all kinds of problems with just about everything that I used to run, including Protel 99 SE. I have hard drive drawers in my PC and I finally decided to set up an XP drive with tools such as 99 SE on it. However, if you MUST use Vista you may be able to make Protel work. In the limited testing that I did I found that everything seems to work except the function that adds libraries. You can open library files and edit them, and you can remove libraries from a project. However, once you have removed a library you cannot re-select it. A work-around would be to rename your library to the same name as the default library in the Protel directory and then copy it over top of the default library. This goes for both SCH and PCB libraries. Yes, I tried the various compatibility modes - no success. I suspect that it has something to do with file PERMISSIONS. Protel consists of a gazillion little EXE files that it calls SERVERS, and I suspect that there may be a problem with the library server having the right permissions, but I spent more time than I should have and did not get it to work. If anyone out there has solved the LIBRARY problem please let us know. I suppose it it time to cough up the bucks for Altium Designer!!??

I made the mistake of upgrading to Vista and have had all kinds of problems with just about everything that I used to run, including Protel 99 SE. I have hard drive drawers in my PC and I finally decided to set up an XP drive with tools such as 99 SE on it. However, if you MUST use Vista you may be able to make Protel work. In the limited testing that I did I found that everything seems to work except the function that adds libraries. You can open library files and edit them, and you can remove libraries from a project. However, once you have removed a library you cannot re-select it. A work-around would be to rename your library to the same name as the default library in the Protel directory and then copy it over top of the default library. This goes for both SCH and PCB libraries. Yes, I tried the various compatibility modes - no success. I suspect that it has something to do with file PERMISSIONS. Protel consists of a gazillion little EXE files that it calls SERVERS, and I suspect that there may be a problem with the library server having the right permissions, but I spent more time than I should have and did not get it to work. If anyone out there has solved the LIBRARY problem please let us know. I suppose it it time to cough up the bucks for Altium Designer!!??

May I suggest something. Try to create another Main Programs folder. and re-install there. Vista has the Program Files folder tree some what locked down and hard to work around how ever. I did find that if you create a new folder tree from the Root using simple names so that older program don't get confused it seem to work for many programs i have how ever, there is still some problems with Vista that has not been solved and is not security issues. It seems that some apps not all that i tested, will start failing things like pop down menus that no longer seem to have a function any more and so on after you have worked with the app for some time.. when it starts doing this. I need to shut it down and wait, it them seems a lot of disk activity is taking place. then I restart it and they will work again. THis is not just one program, it's like 4 out of 8 programs i use is doing this. so oh well. I had Vista on my new laptop which originally came with XP pro. Panasonic suggested Vista so I bought it and installed it.. That was a mistake., every program I had that required the use of the serial port would stop working or miss behave after some time using the functions in the apps that applied to the serial port. It almost look like back in the days when you ran out of system resources.

so I remove Vista and attempted to install XP pro SP2. when I say attempted it was not fun. It seems that some how the bios in the laptop got altered. and when you start and install of XP, it reboots the laptop after the first cycle to get things started and ends up booting something that is still looking for Vista code. The only thing I can come up with here is that Vista changed something in the bios. Look like it wasn't loading it's boot sector from the normal place. any ways. After looking at the resource CD that comes with the laptop, there was a Flash restore utility disk. that corrected that problem. Now we have XP pro SP2 on the laptop, all my programs work fine now.

Did you have to double post it, idiot?

On Sun, 03 Jun 2007 22:48:23 -0400, Jamie wrote: ...

...

...

So, are you going to try to get your money back from M$ for the crapware?

Good Luck! Rich

Why wouldnt it?

Its a windows program so shud work under vista.

All the programs I have written do.

But you didn't write all the world's software either ;)

Well if you stick to using the API supplied by Windows then why shouldnt it work ? Microsoft supply plenty of free compilers and I am pretty sure they dont use non existant system calls ! Its only idiots who start trying to control hardware direct that fall foul.

Because the API is inconsistent across all varieties of Win?

They? M$ didn't write all software in the world either.

Nonsense. Windows was born broken and has only gotten worse with old-age spread.

You're the one full of nonsense, idiot.

Wow, if it isn't li'l Miss Pot.

Your statement sounds good on the surface, but breaks down in practice. You only use those resources that were available in Win3.XX? How about Win95, pre USB support, post USB support? Win98, Win98SE? WinXP service pack X? There are some compatibility problems that happen, unless you have some sort of console app that just prints text into a window, and even then, I'll bet there will be issues with DLL's and so on. It is easy to say, hard to do. How far do you take the forward/backwards compatibility? What about 16 bit apps in the 64 bit version? Last I heard THUNK is gone and WOW is just for 32 bit apps running on the 64 bit version of WinXP Pro64 and Vista. I'm sure the list goes on and on, I'm just shooting from the hip here. Hell, I remember when I had a problem with the infamous MFC and that IS Micro$oft!

Jim

What with a 127 layer autorouter ? I dont think so !

Whats the website got to do with it?

For less than =A320 you get a 63 layer autorouter, gerber viewer, symbol wizards, design rule check, numerous autoplacers. Gridded and ungridded autorouters ! EasyPC charge well over =A3400 for pretty much the same thing !

I wouldnt even go near my pc with vista until SP2 !!!

Win XP pro is currently the best OS for PC's.

and many are going back to XP and some have lobbyed pc makers to still provide XP.