Win2000 Installation Problem

[mookiebud]

At the risk of embarrassment I'll relate my installation trouble in hopes someone can help point me in the right direction. This is the first time I've tried Mach (of any flavour) but hey, there's a first time for everyone - right?

I have a Win2000 Professional Laptop machine (SP4) and a surplus desktop mill (not plugged in yet) and figured " lets give this a whirl. Downloaded Mach2, Mach3 (stable) and Mach 4 (beta). Installed 2, then 3  - because the WEB page suggested they  could co-exist. When I ran 3 I was presented with ... "Session profile". I happily selected "Mach3mill" and pressed OK. After getting the splash screen I got "Program Error, Mach3.exe has generated errors and will be closed by Windows. You will need to restart the program" This happened consistently (ie: every time I tried to run the program).

Tried Mach2 with the same result.

Can anyone suggest what the trouble might be? I'd like to get this working and pass along some $$$ for a license but would also like to see it working first. If anyone can point me in the right direction I would be grateful. Thanks.

[bcromwell]

Sure someone with more knowledge will come along and answer this, but If I were you I would uninstall all of the mach versions, reboot and then only install Mach3 (Much better than 2 and 4 is still early beta) Be sure you reboot after installing Mach3 and before you try to run mach3 for the first time. Sounds to me like the mach system driver got hosed after installing all three versions..

[ynneb]

If you did not do the mandatory reboot b4 running mach for the first time you will have issues.

The uninstall procedure for the mach engine is to remove it from the device manager. Just deleting the mach folder will not help.

Let us know how you go.

[mookiebud]

Thanks for the replies. I did perform the reboot (actually read the Mach2 doc before installing) - OK not all of it but the install part. Can't recall if I did it between installing both 2 and 3 but I will take the advise and uninstall all (including the device manager thing) and reinstall the stable release of 3. I'll write back with results.

[mookiebud]

I tried the above suggestions but had no luck. I completely uninstalled all versions, then uninstalled the drivers in device manager. Shut down, restarted and installed again. Then shutdown, restarted and tried the application. Unfortunately I get the same error. There is a log file that is generated by Dr Watson however I don't possess the expertise to understand what all the information means. I've pretty much cleaned out all the applications and removed the Cardbus ethernet in case that had something to do with it. Sorry, I'm at a loss but might plug on this weekend to see what I can come up with. If there are any further suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them.

[Brian Barker]

Please try this:

http://www.machsupport.com/optimisation%20XP.txt

Hope that helps
Brian

[mookiebud]

Thanks Brian. Your posted link seems to be for Win XP, I'm using 2000 pro but will see what info I can glean that might be useful to my machine. Again, I appreciate all help so thank you.

[Brian Barker]

Do you have a desktop computer? Mach3 and laptops don't play well I will have Art look at this thread and see what he thinks.
Sorry
Brian

[mookiebud]

Thanks once again. Was hoping to make use of a surplus computer with fairly good speed and one in which I don't have thave anything but the machine tooling software on. All my other mahcines are dedicated to other purposes.

OT: Not that it matters but I'm an electronics designer but would like to machine small mechanical parts - that would be cool and very useful in my daily routines.

The only desktop machine that is semi-surplus is a linux box I'm using for other purposes at the moment. The laptop was sitting there doing nothing. Be nice to get that going or at least figure out why it won't the program. In any event, I'll try to play with the operating system a bit and see what I can find. It Art thinks it would be useful I could send him the Dr. Watson logs to see if something is obvious to him.

[mookiebud]

Quick Update

I performed all the steps (that windows 2000) allowed under the linked document and unfortunately I continue to have no joy. Maybe if Art has some ideas I can try ?