Win500 with Wine

Software for PSR-500 and PSR-600 from GRE (and Radio Shack rebranded derivatives Pro-106 and Pro-197). Allows full control and configuration of these models, as well as monitoring, logging and audio recording, when used with a compatible USB cable, among many other Win500 features

The software is written by DonS of starrsoft.com. The latest version, as of this writing, is 1.91. Written for use in Microsoft Windows, it requires Windows 2000 or later version. Windows 95,98, etc. are not supported.

Some success in running Win500 under WINE has been reported here. Here's the initial post on the RR Forums.

What doesn't work

So far, most features of Win500 appear to work, with the following exceptions:

Versions tested:

• Win500: 1.92
• Wine: 1.1.39
• Winetricks: 20100201

Conditions of testing:

• Clean WINE setup (removed .wine and re-created)
• Mimicked OS: Windows XP
• Winetricks additions: allfonts vcrun6sp6 fontfix mfc42 ddr=opengl msxml3 msxml4 msxml6 dotnet11 dotnet20 dotnet30

These features either don't work properly, or cause an application freeze or crash:

• RadioReference.com DB download, causes XML Error, or "Operation Timed Out" (NOTE: appears to work with WINE version 1.1.39!)
• Saving configuration to file after upload to scanner often crashes with "Application exception"
• Many interface "glitches", such as flickering, and slow window redraws when monitoring scanner LCD.
• File save dialogs very slow to appear, and cause CPU to go to 100% utilization.

How to run

These instructions don't include basic software use, just how to install it under Wine. YOU SHOULD NOT RUN WINE UNDER ROOT! You have been warned.

• Wipe your .wine directory from your home directory, or "mv .wine .wine.PREV" to preserve the old and move it out of the way.
• Run "winecfg". Click the "Audio" tab to detect your sound setup. Click Apply and then OK. Leave the rest at the default.
• Download winetricks from here for the latest info on where to get it and usage information.
• Install the following winetricks "packages": dotnet11, mfc42, allfonts, fontfix
• "cd ~/.wine/dosdevices"
• Attach the USB cable to your computer and to your radio. If you have the proper kernel driver for this device ("ftdi_sio"), you should see something like this, when you issue this command:

 # dmesg | grep -i ftdi
[    6.580679] USB Serial support registered for FTDI USB Serial Device
[    6.580811] ftdi_sio 1-4.6:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected
[    6.582734] usb 1-4.6: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[    6.582758] usbcore: registered new interface driver ftdi_sio
[    6.582762] ftdi_sio: v1.5.0:USB FTDI Serial Converters Driver
 #

• Your user must have permission to read and write to this device (aka /dev/ttyUSB0 in this example).
• "ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 com1" (change this to whatever dmesg reports as your device)
• cd to where you downloaded Win500. Unzip it.
• cd to the new Win500 directory.
• "wine Win500_COM.exe"
• Download the current default settings from your radio, and save them as a .p500 file, just in case. Make a habit of saving to a file often, to offset the crashes which inevitably happen at the worst time (like after you spent an hour entering new info).
• Have fun! And please update this page with any new changes in version, features supported, better tricks, etc.

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