andy vt's tools & blog

I have LCD smartie up and running on my windows7 64 bit machine.  I have a parallel VFD that works with the hitachi driver.  I also had to purchase a pci card to add the parallel port.  I installed the following drivers which appear to be signed and works well with lcd smartie http://www.highrez.co.uk/Downloads/InpOut32/default.htm

I have spent hours trying to get lcdwriter to work and tried many different things based on posts via this forum.  My biggest challenge seems to be with the hwinterface.sys or hwinterfacex64.sys.  I cannot get either of these to load on boot.

Is it possible to get a version of the app that uses the drivers from the link I posted?  Those appear to be signed and working on Windows 7.

I may have this mixed up, but I would really be greatful for your guidance. 

Thanks in advance!! 

 see this thread - http://babgvant.com/forums/p/3002/16191.aspx#16191

I have tried everything from installing the basic 64 bit version to the version that integrates with smartie you referenced (x86 and x64).  I still have had no luck getting past the drivers loading.  I did the disable integrity checks and tried the f8 load unsiged drivers trick to no avail.

I thought perhaps it was because I installed other drivers I referenced in the link from my orignal post.  Those drivers helped me to get LCD Smartie running.  I have probably spent more than 30 hours over the past few weeks reading everything I could find.  Based on my read on the posts at the green button, it is obvious that you picked up the mantle on this when others had given up.  I am certainly grateful and I would be happy to pay for something that works.

Is there any chance you could look at using the signed drivers with your app? 

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.   

The version of lcdwriter in that thread lets you use a LCD Smartie display dll, so if it works there it should work with lcdwriter.

I won't be updating lcdwriter to work with x64 lpt based displays.  Mine broke, and I won't be replacing it.

I guess that is what I needed to hear because I got it to work tonight.  I will post an updated set of instructions for others out there on window 7 64 who have an old-school parallel VFD.  There are a couple of minor adds that will help.

Thanks for the software.  I feel like my system is complete  now.  I will make a donation toward the cause later this week.

Troy 

 Do you mind sharing what you did to make it work? I am in the exact same boat as you were (LCD Smartie works with the modified drivers, but LCDWriter is not working).

Thanks,
CFC

I have windows 7 64bit.  I installed the 32 bit version that allows you to use the smartie dll configuration referenced in the following thread.

 http://babgvant.com/forums/p/3002/16191.aspx#16191 
 
I then copied the inpout32.dll that installs makes lcd smartie work from the link below into the lcdwriter directory.

 http://www.highrez.co.uk/Downloads/InpOut32/default.htm
 
After it was working I then deleted the hwinterface.sys driver installed by LCDWriter and removed the registry entries.  It would not load resulting in slower boot times. 

 Let me know if this helps.

 Troy

 Unfortunately I still wasn't able to get it going after a few hours of messing with it.

LCD Smartie is still working fine, so I know in theory it should be "possible" to get this going, but I must be missing something.

I don't quite know what to make of the event logs to be able to analyze what's going on. LCDWriter did manage to produce a .txt file that seamingly would have been my readout with :Line 0: Media Center, Line 1: (Date and time).

 I'll try some more. I really appreciate your reply though, gives me some measure of a path to follow.

Thanks,

CFC