Psion »   Vista and Psiwin

I just finished setting up Psiwin on Vista, and can verify that it works. However it ain`t easy, so I thought I`d share my experience.
The new computers do not have a serial port, so I bought a Belkin Serial to USB adapter. I could not get it to work on Vista, so I returned it, and bought a Dynex USB PDA/ Serial adapter at Best Buy, and that installed with no problem.
I first tried to simply put Psiwin in, but I got error messages. When I tried to uninstall Psiwin I could not get rid of enough of the residual bits and the Psiwin program gave me a message that it would not reinstall until I deleted the parts of the program that were remaining.
I know that there is a program available to uninstall Psiwin, but for reasons not necessary to this discussion I had to reinstall Vista. This time I asked the "search" to find info on loading Psiwin using an earlier version of Windows. This is the compatibility mode, where the computer doesn`t try to load the program, but checks if it can be installed on earlier versions of Windows. I asked it to try compatibility with Windows 95 and 98. I still got error messages, but the program said it would search for fixes. I am not sure if it found a fix, but it did say the program could be compatible. The most prominent error message was related to the 32 bit architecture of Vista, and I am pretty sure that Psiwin is based on 16 bit architecture. I called the Vista tech support line to try to deal with the 16/32 bit issue, and got a tech that was very helpful. He tried various approaches, and then suggested that we try to install the program in a "clean boot". which is where the other programs in the computer are disabled, so as not to interfere with the installation.
To do this, go to the start menu, click on the search bar and type msconfig, go to services, then click the box to hide all Microsoft services. Then click the startup tab and disable all these as well. This will disable all third party software after you press apply and ok, and the computer asks you to restart. After the restart put in the Psiwin disk and follow the normal install. When the page turned to the blue screen and the Installation bars came up everything stopped and I got an error message related about the "string being too long". I thought this was it, but after we tried to figure what that was about, and the tech being unable to help, I clicked ok and to my surprise Psiwin loaded and worked fine. At this point it is necessary to go back to msconfig and follow the same steps listed above, but this time enable the functions that were disabled, click apply, ok and restart.
I hope this helps some of you to continue to enjoy your Psions as much as I enjoy mine.

It would certainly overcome any issues that might arise from a USB to serial converter! We all know that getting PsiWin to work can be a black art.

I have heard about lots of problems when trying to connect Psions to PCs and laptops via USB to Serial Port adaptors.
So......I am considering having a serial port installed in my next desktop PC (which will be running Vista).
Any thoughts as to whether or not this should overcome some of the PsiWin installation/performance problems noted in this thread?
Many thanks in anticipation (and don`t all rush at once!).
Graham

Thank you

Sequence can be important. I found it vital to install the USB driver before PsiWin, otherwise PsiWin didn`t pick up the new port.
What port is the USB Serial port identifed as in device manager? It is this port that needs to be selected in Psion Properties.
Colin