Had my prgrammer for years. Love it. But I had to upgrade my old pc which had windows 10 and the programmer worked perfectly on. Now I’m trying to get the programmer to get recognized in Windows 11 on the laptop.
I am going insane. I downloaded the latest lokprogrammer software from ESU. Installed no issue. Started with the stock USB drivers. Wouldn’t recognize the programmer. Then downloaded the drivers from ESU’s site. Still won’t recognize the programmer. Then searched the forums and found a third party serial->USB set of drivers. Installed and still won’t recognize the programmer.
I’ve tried it all. In each of those steps I’ve done drivers, reboot and tried with the programmer unplugged. Then tried installing the drivers with the programmer plugged in. No dice. I’ve rebooted about 19 times, tried all the drivers I can try.
I’m also doing the plugging in right. Close the program, plug in the programmer then open the programmer. Just for giggles I tried to open the program and then plug the programmer in. Still nothing on either set up.
I’m frustrated and just want to enjoy some programming time and I love ESU…but this is insanely frustrating.
Any input from anyone? I never should have upgraded my pc and I’d be fine but noooooooo! LOL
Could it be that there are hardware-security settings that are (quietly) restricting communication with the older hardware? I have utterly no experience with the specialized hardware that 11 requires to run, or what sort of ‘protection’ it implements on traffic from the USB ports.
I mention this because Google has silently implemented login blocking from some older gmail clients – they claim there is some kind of ‘one-time password’ service that you can use with these, but I can’t get it past the account information to be able to enter their damn password. This acts like the kind of ‘security’ Alan Kay et al. used to talk about: if you can’t even get to the credentials entry, your system will remain quite ‘secure’…
I’d contact ESU support about this – they will likely have encountered any systemic issue with Win11 and may have definitive advice, or a workaround.
I’ve got an email into them. They just seem to take so long to respond…but I bet you’re right. Its something silly I’m not thinking Of or missing and should be turning off so it’s not causing the issue.
Hopefully they get back to me quickly. I’ll post the response here for others.
I’ve been following the Loksound-at-groups.io threads for a while now. Out of curioscity I searched ‘Windows 11’ there and came up with a few threads concerning the Lokprogrammer and Win11. There is also a downloadable driver there that is suggested for Win11 Arm USB/Serial setups.
I’d suggest looking into this route and if you don’t see an immediate solution then post a question there. I’d give a direct link but the MR folks, understandably, prefer not to link to other forums.
If your new computer has a Windows Arm processor you might need a different USB cable or some kind of adapter. I can’t say for sure as I’m still on the vintage Win 10.
Could be basic computer stuff that most people don’t seem to know anymore. When you deleat a program it can take a long time for it to be overwritten if you don’t add a lot of stuff all the time. What happens is you load a new version of a program and the computer picks up code from old program that has not been overwritten yet and thinks it is part of new program. This used to be a real problem for people but not so much anymore but base code on this program could be very old computer wize. PS ignore this if this was a fresh instillatation and you didn’t sync with old computer.
The latest update to win10 and all of win11 will not let you run apps(used to be called programs.) From third parties. Unless it comes from the Windows store or pre loaded on the computer. Just select run as administrator and it lets win know you take full responsibility if something happens.
I found this out when one of the apps I use for adjusting the gyros on my RC helicopters stopped working. The day before the update worked fine. The netbook updated overnight and the next day the app stopped working.
After you select RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR, you may get a couple warnings. Just okay them and the Lokprogrammer should work as before.
Recommends, not so much to solve this problem - yet to help some of you to avoid having this problem.
First - DONT update to win10 or 11. Keep your “old” machine (either laptop or PC -herein after called “puter”) and just replace it. You might think that is cost prohibitive but just wait until the problems start rolling in (like this one). The ‘fix it’ costs/hassles will always be more than a new puter. IT Techs arent cheap - I charge $100/hr. all day long. The 1-800-call-India techs will take you for alot more than that!
Second - if you are being coerced into updating, and you cant save your old machine, atleast back it up OR replace the hard drive completely (way cheaper than new puter) beforehand. This allows you to have essentially “2” operating systems for the same puter. Yes its a wonker to have to switch drives back and forth yet still better than dealing with windows latest pirateware probelms. (and you will always have your programs/data in its original form - working!)
Third - while companys typically follow the operating system when writing new software (new op sys = new software versions obviously), if their software isnt backward compatable (smart programming!) OR the company doesnt offer a version for ‘older’ op sys’s… then you dont want their product period! Even if you love it!
Fourth - turn off any ‘auto-updating’ you have turned on. This is how pirateware propagates. As most of you have found out when you wake up the next morning and find you have totally new software you didnt ask for… and its broken to boot. “But what about my security updates, i gotta keep current dont I?”
Really, and what IT do you do? The only way to clear all programs instantly is to reboot to factory specs as it will overwrite everything except the operating system partition. It brings up an interesting memory though, once my Autistic son wiped the operating system from the hard drive, just fiqued it out somehow, what a pain to reload, even in the disk days. what I hate these days are that even if you set up your computer to never update, it will try to find a way and many times dose. This has killed a lot of old programs on my computer.
Recommends, not so much to solve this problem - yet to help some of you to avoid having this problem.
First - DONT update to win10 or 11. Keep your “old” machine (either laptop or PC -herein after called “puter”) and just replace it. You might think that is cost prohibitive but just wait until the problems start rolling in (like this one). The ‘fix it’ costs/hassles will always be more than a new puter. IT Techs arent cheap - I charge $100/hr. all day long. The 1-800-call-India techs will take you for alot more than that!
Second - if you are being coerced into updating, and you cant save your old machine, atleast back it up OR replace the hard drive completely (way cheaper than new puter) beforehand. This allows you to have essentially “2” operating systems for the same puter. Yes its a wonker to have to switch drives back and forth yet still better than dealing with windows latest pirateware probelms. (and you will always have your programs/data in its original form - working!)
Third - while companys typically follow the operating system when writing new software (new op sys = new software versions obviously), if their software isnt backward compatable (smart programming!) OR the company doesnt offer a version for ‘older’ op sys’s… then you dont want their product period! Even if you love it!
Fourth - turn off any ‘auto-updating’ you have turned on. This is how pirateware propagates. As most of you have found out when you wake up the next morning and find you have totally new software you didnt ask for… and its broken to boot. "But what about my securit
Believe me. If I didn’t have to update I wouldn’t. I am a IT guy as well and with my last system I just built I’ve got all that auto update garbage turned off. Unfortunately to stay up with my work stuff, I am forced to move on with technology and the programs. One of the flaws of using my pc for work and play.
You are very correct in the fact that “run as admin” didn’t do squat unfortunatley for me.
I still haven’t heard back from Loksound after a week. And so I’m stuck. I will try to update drives again tonight but so far using Loksound or third party drivers I have had zero luck. I wish Loksound would keep updating their software because in my book it’s a better programming system than anything else on the market.
I’ll keep at it and see what I can do tonight. Thanks for all the recommends guys!
Thanks for the info on that forum. I’m still poking around there. Unfortunately the drivers they recommended were all some that I had tried unsuccessfully.
I’ll keep at it. Was hoping after a week Loksound would have responded with something…but nothing yet.
Im not sure of your puter literacy level, and without being hands on with your puter i can only make ‘suggestions’. Here’s one that kinda lets you get back what you had, and still bend over for the update your being forced to take.
There are programs out there for puters called VM’s (Virtual Machines) that when running, allow a puter to run a totally ‘other’ operating system like an “app”, while your current operating system is still running your puter. Make sense?
Its like having Windows as a program running on your Windows puter at the same time. Windows in Windows. How does this help you? Well,
If your on Win11 (my sympathies) now, and the last time this LOK program worked was on Win10 (even more sympathies), then run your Win11 normally, start your VM and load Win10 in it.
Once the VM with Win10 is installed, up and running, load your LOK program into the Win10 like you normally would load the program. (or any other program you had on Win10)
Yes I know, its a huge learning curve due to the insane amount of setting things up. It only allows you to have both the new and old at same time, on one puter. Probably isnt for you, or anyone without a serious amount of puter knowledge.
That being said, if you can pull it off, the advantages are enormous. Wanna play the original “Tetris” for Windows? You can do that with a VM running Win98SE. Or even WinXP. With a click of your mouse you can be back on Win11 running Office or something. Its that easy once set up.
Complicated - yes. But sometimes you have to go to this extreme when a driver, or even a piece of hardware is not supported anymore any you absolutely h
Yea, even though I only have a home machine, it is getting near impossible to accually turn off the auto updates. This is becoming a proublem with phones even more.
Better still, there are Web sites (I remember VirtualBox offhand) that let you set up a VM using an ‘older’ OS completely in the ‘cloud’, so that your local device becomes only a client accessing the operating system. Often all the ‘heavy lifting’ for device-driver compatibility, etc. is handled by the VM developer or provider. It might make sense to research how to do this to run Windows 10 (or older – 7 and XP were remarkably stable for operating ‘off the Web’ for dedicated software).
The alternative is just to get or keep an old machine with a clean software install, and use the modern equivalent of ‘sneakernet’ to run any critical updates or install software on that. You shouldn’t need an Internet connaction – broadband or otherwise – to run JMRI, interrogate and debug locomotives, etc.
In the amusing ‘first world problems’ category – I routinely ran my very old Macintosh files (some generated under system 6.0.8 as loaded in place of A/UX to date this for Mac aficionados) using a carefully built app called WPMacApp, which was programmed by the WordPerfect community, but with an older Mac disk image that ‘just happened’ to include working copies of Word 4 and QuarkXPress 4.5. Ironically while this has been rewritten for active support, the current supported version no longer runs on any actual OS X earlier than about Catalina… so I had to do hardware and software upgrades, some of which are a little undocumented, it I wanted to run System 7.5.5 in a VM…
What’s untrue is that you can’t run 3rd party programs or apps or whatever you want to call them on Win10 or Win11, unless you get them from the Windows store.
Just about every program I run, since the W95 days, is what would be considered a 3rd party (ie, non-Microsoft) program or “app”. And absolutely none of them have come from the Microsoft store. MS already tracks enough of what I do without me logging
