Nsammon68

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Win2k_XP_ConfigHelp

Note: The following text has been copied from various Internet postings (mostly from the Trunker yahoo group) that deal with getting Trunker working under Windows 2000 and Windows XP (there is also a Microsoft Bulletin relating to Windows 98 & ME at the bottom). I am not the author of these postings and cannot comment on their accuracy. You can search the Trunker Yahoo group to get the full context of the discussion. This is intended to provide general guidance. Do so at your own risk. www.dataslicers.com

Trunker works well in XP after some initial configuration. > > There is no need to reboot and run in DOS mode to run Trunker (I > don't even think you can reboot in DOS mode in WinXP). You do, > however have to set the environment variable "trackenv" manually, as > there is no autoexec.bat in XP (at least, it's in a different place, > and when I entered "set trackenv=c:\trackenv.txt" in the > autoexec.bat, and rebooted, it never set that variable). You can > make a batch file to set this variable, then have it run Trunker. > > You can do more experimenting, but it is possible to set env > variables by going to the Control Panel, click on the Advanced tab, > then click "Environment Variables" to add a "trackenv" variable. I > tried setting this variable as administrator and as a normal user, > but Trunker did not recognize it. I still had to set it manually in > a dos command prompt window (which is still there in WinXP, BTW). In > addition, you can right-click on Trunker.exe and tell it to run in > full screen mode if you choose. > > I wish someone would just code a slick Windows version of Trunker. > Does the source code exist out there anywhere? I know a MicroSoft > programmer who is willing to code a Windows version of Trunker. > > -BHall

Go to Lindsay Blanton's fine site www.trunkedradio.net and download slicer.exe. Open a command prompt (or run straight from DOS) and connect your dataslicer to the com port and discriminator tap. Type in "slicer 1" (or 2 if your slicer is on com 2) and watch the screen. When tuned to a Motorola or EDACS control channel you should see defined spikes. Read the slicer.exe docs to decipher the screen display.

Slicer will tell you what pin on your serial port the data appears on. Trunker works on the CTS, DSR and DCD pins. While these are usually chosen in the track environment settings they can be toggled within Trunker. Press the "C" key to get to the Config menu and then use the "p" key to toggle between the 3 pins available. Also try toggling the Invert/Normal polarity by using the "m" key on the Config menu.

I think you will have much better results using the MMX200 machine with the version of DOS that comes in Windows 98. While I often run Trunker within Windows on my own 200 MHz Pentium with Windows 98 I find I have somewhat better results running from DOS, not in a DOS window.

You can set your machine to start at a DOS prompt by altering the hidden file "MSDOS.SYS". Within Windows go to "My Computer" and go to the View Menu. Select Folder Options and then select the View tab. Select the option "Show all files".

Next look on the "C" drive for a file called MSDOS.SYS. Right click on it and select Properties. Unclick the box marked "Read Only" and close the Properties window. Then open MSDOS.SYS with Notepad, change the line reading "BootGUI=1" to read BootGUI=0". Save the change and close all the open windows. You may want to go back and recheck the Read Only attribute of the file and hide the system files again to prevent future problems.

The next time you start or restart the machine it will display the Windows 98 splash screen and then boot to a C: prompt. If you keep Trunker in a folder (directory) called Trunker you can write a little batch file to run Trunker from the C: prompt like this:

cls cd\ cd trunker trunker

Name this Trunker.bat and leave it loose on the root directory of the C: drive. Leave duplicates of it wherever you may end up being in DOS. This allows you to run Trunker by just typing in "trunker" from any prompt that this little batch file exists. I keep a copy in my Windows directory since some times I end up at c:/windows>, I also keep it in Trunker and elsewhere. This batch file clears the screen, changes to the root directory, then changes to the Trunker directory and runs Trunker.

Others have written batch files to automatically delete the 1234sys.txt and other default files Trunker develops when it can't find a system ID. I leave this be, and changed the system name in 1234sys.txt to "I haven't ID'd the system yet!"

Also be sure that you use a file called in your Autoexec.bat to set the trunker environment variables. I have a file on the c: drive called track.txt, and a line in the autoexec,bat that says:

set trackenv=c:\track.txt

Then be sure that your slicer pin, polarity, tracking radio (if used) and other variables as noted in the Trunker docs are set here.

If you mean you just want to view on the screen using one scanner, then the only difference is the variable trackenv.txt will not work if set in the autoexec.bat file in C: I had to set the variable by selecting "System Properties" from the control panel. Then select "Advanced" and at the bottom select "Environment Variables". Enter the variable here.

Like I said in my last post I have good accuracy until I try to use the second radio. If you only want to view the system and not listen to it this should work. You can also set the variable from a "Command Prompt" window, but it will only work for that window until it is closed.

Has anyone had luck making XP work with two radios? The other post wasn't specific about the setup except that it worked.

I thought I enabled Compatibility mode on my Trunker here (right- click-->Properties-->Compatibility), but I just checked it and I do not have it enabled.

To start Trunker in XP however, I have a batch file with the following in it:

set trackenv=c:\trackenv.txt trunker

My trackenv.txt file contains the following:

TRACKSCANPORT=com2 TRACKSCANBAUD=19200 TRACKSCAN=BC245 TRACKSLICERPIN=CTS TRACKSLICERPORT=com1 TRACKSCANPARK=147.3400 NOEMERGENCY=1 TRACKDIGITAL=1 TRACKSLICERMODE=normal TYPE2LURK=1 FILTERLOG=1 NEWRADIO=50 NEWGROUP=50 TRACKCOLORS=0,2,7,14,14,4

Of course that will vary because of different settings, etc.

Perhaps I'm not having any trouble because I upgraded from Windows98 to WindowsXP. You can try compatibility mode and see if that works. Bottom line: I've heard of several people running Trunker in WinXP fine. On the other hand, I've also heard lots of people having problems. Hopefully a Windows version will be available soon. Good luck. I got it working now. While in the Explorer window, I clicked on Tools and then Folder Options. I then clicked on the View tab and unchecked the box that says "Hide file extensions for known file types." Appearantly, when I named the file trackenv.txt, Windows mistook the ".txt" to be part of the file name, rather than the file extnsion. More than likely XP uses the NT form of environment variable setting. These should need to be set only once when done this way.

Clip from Win2kPro help file:

---

To add or change the values of environment variables

Open System in Control Panel. On the Advanced tab, click Environment Variables, then click the name of the user variable or system variable you want to change, as follows: Click New to add a new variable name and value. Click Edit to change a current variable name and value. Click Delete to remove a variable name and value. Notes

If you are not logged on as administrator to the local computer, the only environment variables you can change are user variables. To open a Control Panel item, click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel, and then double-click the appropriate icon. Windows 2000 saves changes in the registry so they are available automatically the next time you start your computer. You may have to close and reopen running programs for the new settings to take effect. From: "Dewey" <dewey3@c...> Date: Tue Nov 13, 2001 4:52 pm Subject: RE: [trunker] Re: XP ?

I can not comment on XP since I'm not running, but I wrote a very short batch file that sets *and* unsets the variables some I can run Trunker effectively in Windows. When you look at the batch file, you will see that it sets *all* the variables for me, then calls Trunker. Once Trunker is terminated, the batch file unsets the variables. This has worked for me for years with no problems. I named the batch file TRNK.BAT, and created a Windows shortcut to it (the shortcut is also set so the DOS does not know that Windows is running). Here's the file.... I hope it helps:

==================

Dewey

Well if I go in and turn the com port off and then on it works fine. Then if I go to use it on another program such as my external modem it tells me that the comport is in use despite having exited from trunker normally.

Go in turn it off and back on and it works the external modem.

I looked at the power save registry edit but mine was already all "o".

I know this is not the computer thread but it is a pain in the butt when running trunker. I'm not sure if I posted my resolution to the COM port problem.

I broke down and called the Vendor (Dell) Great Support !!!!

They finally before going for a Mother Board replacement, said Re-Set your BIOS . Once we did that, all is well back here in Boston !! Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 15:33:01 -0000

  From: "n9jig" <n9jig@carmachicago.com>

Subject: Trunker and WinXP Part 34829334

Recently I have tried to use Trunker in Windows XP on 2 different computers. Using information from this forum's members and elsewhere I have had great success!

Computer #1 is a Dell Inspiron 1800 with a built-in Serial Port and dual PCMCIA slots. With a dual boot, I was able to run Trunker just fine from Win98 on a separate partition. I could use the built-in serial port for bith the slicer and the AR8000 using a special cable.

From WinXP I was unable to get the built-in serial port to work with a dataslicer and Trunker at all, but I was able to get Trunker to work with the Socket Dual IO PC Card serial port. I guess the drivers for the Socket Card work better with DOS applications than XP's drivers for the built-in serial port.

Following the adivice from this forum I added a line to the autoexec.nt file in the System32 directory that set the tracking variables by pointing to my track.txt file within the Trunker directory. (set trackenv=e:/trunker/track.txt). I used Com4 for the Slicer since the serial port card ended up with Com4 and Com5. The AR8000 second radio works fine off of the built-in serial port (Com1). I was unable to get both the slicer and the AR8000 to work off of a single com port in any NT based OS (XP or Win2K) but it works fine using separate ports. When connected to the same serial port the AR8000 goes to the Park frequency but the dataslicer sees no data.

With my old laptop running Win2K I was unable to leave Trunker running in the background since the serial port seemed to stop seeong data unless Trunker was in the front window. That issue has seemed to disappear, Trunker runs happily in the background, even minimized, with no loss of data decoding. It also sends the AR8000 to voice channels with no problems minimized or in the background.

On my little Sony Viao V505 that has no built-in serial port I also used the above tricks to get Trunker working, but of course I had some problems. I used the same serial port card as from my Dell and everything worked great. I then bought a new Socket Dual IO serial port card so that I could leave one laptop in the car without having to disassemble everything. Since the new card was an updated version it had different drivers. It took me a while to get it installed since the installer would barf when it came upon the old card's drivers. Since I didn't want to diddle with the Dell now that it was working fine I had my In-House IT Department (son) get those old drivers flushed out so the new card would work.

Now the Sony works just as good as the Dell. Since there is no built-in serial port I was able to use Com1 and Com4 on the Socket card, so that both my track.txt files are identical.

The next project is to get the Dell's built-in serial port to change to Com5 or 6 so I can put both the AR8000 and the slicer on Socket card so that both machines are consistant. My GPS works fine on a USB adaptor, so I will use that for both machines, thus I won't need to swap cords around all the time.

I had VERY similar problems when trying to run Trunker/Etrunk (as well as other DOS programs accessing the COMM port) on my Toshiba laptop. Sometimes the application would see the comm port, other times it wouldn't. I tried every power setting I could find, to no avail. Finally, someone on TrunkCom sent me the info to check the comm port's power saver setting in my registry.... yes registry. I fixed that, and have not had any problems since (that was over a year ago)!!!

First, do this at YOUR OWN RISK. Second, if you should do it, record your old settings so you can change them back if needed (like, if this is not the solution):

Run "Regedit", and drill down the following keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE System Services VxD VCOMM

If "Enable Power Management" is set to anything other than 00 00 00 00 (four sets of zeros), change it to read 00 00 00 00. This turns off the Registry's power management to the comm port. Like I said, it was exactly what I needed.

BTW: to get to CMOS on a Toshiba laptop, hold down the ESC key while turning the machine on.

Dewey You'll also want to make sure it's not tied to the Ir port device. i had to turn off all power saving features and go into bios to turn off the IR and to configure Comm1. The com port was in power save mode, I would have to run something that called it directly to wake it up. I fixed that with the following registry hack: --- Start Run regedit H key Local Machine (click the +) System (click the +) Current control set (click the +) Services (click the +) Vxd (click the +) Vcomm (open folder) Enable power management (open file) change to all zeros (01 00 00 00 = power save mode on) save restart machine Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 252184 MS-DOS-Based Programs Unable to Initialize COM Ports on Computers with ACPI Support The information in this article applies to: Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition This article was previously published under Q252184 If this article does not describe your hardware-related issue, please see the following Microsoft Web site to view more articles about hardware: http://support.microsoft.com/support/windows/topics/hardware/hwddresctr.asp

IMPORTANT: This article contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows Registry

SYMPTOMS When you are running Windows 98 Second Edition or Windows Millennium Edition (Me) on a computer that supports the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) specification, MS-DOS-based programs that use the Extended Communication Service Int 14h function 05 do not work during the first attempt. To observe this behavior, use the Mode.com tool, type MODE COMx:19200, and then press ENTER. You then receive the following error message: Function not supported on this computer. NOTE: The information in this article is applicable only if you are able to start your computer to an MS-DOS prompt and you are able to run the preceding command successfully. If you receive an error message when you run the preceding command, your computer's Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) does not support the extended communication INT 14h function 05 command. For additional information about this issue, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 119595 Function Not Supported on This Computer

CAUSE This behavior can occur because the virtual communication device (Vcd.vxd) incorrectly initializes the default state of the COM ports for MS-DOS virtual machines (VMs) when you start your computer because the COM ports have already been detected and powered off. The virtual COM ports are initialized with 0xFF for all of its states instead of the actual values of the port. Each time a new VM is created, the default state that was detected at startup is copied to the VM. Because the COM ports are trapped and virtualized, some of the responses to in/out commands are based on the default state at startup instead of the current state of the hardware. There are many in/out commands that non-virtualize the port. When this occurs, power is applied to the port, the current state is copied into the virtual settings, and the COM ports operate properly. RESOLUTION To work around this behavior, use either of the following methods: Method 1 Run the MODE command twice to properly initialize the port. Method 2 Disable the power management of the COM ports: Use Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) to locate the EnablePowerManagement value in the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\VCOMM

On the Edit menu, click Modify, change 01 to 00, and then click OK. Quit Registry Editor. STATUS Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. MORE INFORMATION This behavior does not affect 32-bit Windows programs and MS-DOS-based programs that program the UART directly, because in both of these cases power is applied to the COM ports and the COM ports are initialized properly.

Last Reviewed: 6/12/2002 Keywords: kberrmsg kbHardware kbprb KB252184

Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 119595

Function Not Supported on This Computer The information in this article applies to: Microsoft Windows 95 This article was previously published under Q119595 SYMPTOMS Typing MODE COMx:19200 results in the following error message: Function not supported on this computer. CAUSE IBM PS/2-style computers support extended INT 14h services that allow the baud rate to be set up to 19200. MODE uses this extended function support to initialize COM ports on PS/2-style systems.

Most non-PS/2-class machines do not have a ROM BIOS that supports this extended functionality. WORKAROUND Rather than using MODE to set the baud rate, use an application that controls the COM port to set the baud rate. STATUS Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. MORE INFORMATION This information is true for previous versions of MODE.COM as well the version in Windows 95.

Info on backing up and restoring your registry Microsoft Knowledge Base Article – 256986