LPT Dongle

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Guest

Windows XP used a different HAL, that rendered many hardware security dongles
useless. Our dongle, installed on LPT1, never had any issues, even with
XP/sp2. vista renders our dongle useless, thus the software is useless
(company no longer makes this package). Compatability mode does not remedy
the situation.

Has anybody seen this? Anybody have any ideas?
 
Hardware dongles are ancient history. Most new motherboards do not even have
lpt ports to accept them.

Move on!

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Very helpful Richard. The reason for this is that the software that is
protected by that ancient dongle costs somewhere in the neighborhood of
$3000. If one or two of those zeros was not there, it would be a no-brainer.

Hopefully someone, somehere, can assist with a solution that is
cost-effective and work.
 
Cost effective?

Stay with Windows XP for the next two years while you figure out your
options.

Dual boot!

Have a dedicated computer just for your very expensive dongled applications.

Find replacement applications - dongleless!

It is not like you don't have options.

Sorry to be blunt, but you are using an antiquated program. The manufacturer
has already dropped support for it. Why should Windows support it, or the
M/B manufacturers for that matter?

I have gone through this since the days of DOS. I have a DOS CAD application
that cost well over $10,000 that can not be used because of dongles.

You just move on!

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Almost Forgot.

I also have a $17,000 plotter that was last used in Windows 3.11 WFWG. No
drivers since then.

I moved on.

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
You are correct there. As of now, there are no real advantages to switch to
Vista, unless we were to upgrade to 64-bit. XP Pro has not given us any
issues at all. So that is probably what we will do.

You are also correct that this is plotter software (CAS to be exact).
Unfortunately, most of our upper-end CAS software does not come dongle-free.

Thanks
 
Richard Urban said:
Cost effective?

Stay with Windows XP for the next two years while you figure out your
options.

Dual boot!
Click to expand...


Or.... would a virtual machine work in these circumstances? Or is it
unlikely to recognize the LPT port?
I know very little about the whole virtualization process, so I'm just
asking.
 
VirtualPC "may" be an option. It would have to be tried to find out. Windows
XP in VirtualPC supports a parallel printer port and Com1 - Com2.

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
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