C18 under VISTA64 ?

[3v0]

Does anyone know if C18 student edition should work on VISTA64?

One of the students just got a new laptop with VISTA Home Premium 64 bit. MPLAB installs and runs ok. But when we tried to install C18 student addition it complained about it not being a 64 bit application. I think this happened after the installer collected all the info. I was multitasking so I do not have the exact error msg.

If it does not I either have to dual boot the machine with XP or try BoostC.

3v0

 

[Speakerguy]

BoostC is OK and they have pretty cheap license options. Also they can use 12F and 16F chips too.

 

[AtomSoft]

dude before you dual boot i recommend Virtual Box as its what i use to test programs i make on various operating systems.

VirtualBox

Its a great tool and FREE!

 

[3v0]

We know that MPLAB and C18 work under XP 32bit.
What advantage is there in trying virtualbox?

 

[AtomSoft]

you can install XP in that build of vista this way the user doesnt change any original software he had on the PC. He keeps everything he has no need to alter the harddrive in any way. Just install that and he can install XP, linux or what ever he chooses as a virtual drive and run windows from within windows. or linux from within windows. etc... so it saves the actual hard drive from any changes no need to format nothing or dual boot. Runs nice and smooth for me. And i have multiple. I run XP Pro and Vista 32 bit from it. oing to setup a linux box soon!

 

[AtomSoft]

Look at it in action:

 

[3v0]

I would give it a try. But this is a high school student. I read the FAQ for virtualbox, it sounds like a dual boot solution has a lot less chance of going wrong or confusing the student.

 

[AtomSoft]

I think a dual boot is way worse. The only way it would be simple is if the user has more than 1 hard drive. If not then they would have to partition there hard drive and then maybe even have to reinstall both OS again. That seems way harder and more confusing then installing 1 program and loading a cd/dvd into your pc and installing xp on the virtual box.

If need be i can make a video tutorial on how to do the whole thing. I can have it by tomorrow so you and him can maybe have a chat and decide which to do.


im getting ready to install Vista on it tonight or in the morning. Ill be happy to add another XP as a example. It doesnt take long.

 

[3v0]

There is no they here. The student can not do this.

I will setup the machine and install the XP for the student. There is no problem with shrinking the size of the partition used by the existing OS VISTA64, Gparted is a linux based partition manager that boots from CD to do that. Once you free up the disk space you do a regular XP install and then patch the boot manager. It is well documented.

Thanks anyway.

 

[AtomSoft]

i dont know if im the only one but that stills seems to be way more work than installing this program and installing xp in it. Also its movable like you can burn it to dvd and share and backup. Im not saying it would be better this way just easier. The best would indeed be a dual boot but... for user sake its easier this way.

Anyway Tell me how it goes. And by the way... how is the classes coming along?

 

[3v0]

How class is going depends on what day you ask me. I have been posting about it in my blog on this site.

I see your point, with virtualbox there is no danger of messing up the vista install. It would be a bit ugly if things went wrong because most of these machines do not come with restore disks. FWIW the last time I fixed a gateway box under warrenty they sent me a set of real restore disks. Perhaps there is a way to create them form the backup partition.

But the complexity of an OS on top of an OS always causes problems and the FAQ for virtualbox confirms that. I would try it on my box but I do not have VISTA so I am not sure if it would provide any use info.

3v0

 

[AtomSoft]

I forgot about blogs sorry. I never even started one. I think i might soon. Like when im working on a project and actually have my camera to take pictures Pictures are great especially when working on stuff like this (pics & related)

I find most people like seeing that it works rather than just reading it. Better yet they like visual stimulation which is near impossible with just text. I also like taking pictures in case i forget to edit a schematic people notice these changes on the board and such.

I dont know if i said his before but i have horrible remembering skills and tend to forget alot! so pictures help me also

Oh yeah i commented the blog i know its lengthy ... i like to type

 

[arhi]

I see your point, with virtualbox there is no danger of messing up the vista install. It would be a bit ugly if things went wrong because most of these machines do not come with restore disks. FWIW the last time I fixed a gateway box under warrenty they sent me a set of real restore disks. Perhaps there is a way to create them form the backup partition.

regarding the virtualisation tools, virtualbox (have to market it, made by my company) is a great tool, you can create virtual machine install anything you want inside (for e.g. windows xp + mplab + c18 SE + picc demo + hitech c demo+ boost c demo+ ... + ...) then you burn that image to a CD and distribute to students (there is here issue of XP licence, donno how that is handled I use corporate licence that does not have to be activated) .. anyhow, they just need to install virtualbox on the host operating system (osx or windows or solaris) and copy the image from the cd ... they have "ready to run" development environment set by you with all the tools and examples they need ... if they mess up something, delete something, break something, just remove the image and copy the "original" one from the cd (or dvd, depends on how big the image is )

it is great tool for testing too, I for example have "plan/naked/fresh" images of "all" operating systems I want to test something on (vanila 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, 98se, nt3.5, nt351, nt4, nt4sp3, nt4sp6, w2k, w2ksp1.... xp, xpsp1.. xpsp3, vista, vistasp1... linux fc1..fc9, rhel3..rhel5 ...) and when I want to test if some app install's ok, or run's ok on "blank" system, I start the virtualbox, run the app, make it "work", remove the image from the hdd, copy the next os from dvd, start virtualbox ....

I have to mention that there is vmware server too, it is also free, it also does the same thing but does not work properly nor have free server for osx


in regards to backups, you can use acronis tools to backup your hole drive or separate partitions to a remote location (other drive, network drive ...)


EDIT: forgot to mention one great ability of virtualbox, that is USB pass trough... what does that do .. well, you connect pickit2/junebug on your host computer (let say vista x64 without drivers for your pickit2) and tell virtualbox to "pass trough" that usb to client os, you will be able to access the pickit2/junebug from the winxp running inside the virtualbox just like it was a real computer with pickit2 attacked. I tried this on my laptop (macbook pro, osx10.5) running winxp inside virtualbox and was able to use pickit2 without a problem to program and debug a pic - I was unable to do that with vmware

EDIT: download link: Downloads - VirtualBox