Fun with Windows 10 ...

Gary L. Robinson

Surviving upgrade to Windows 10 ...

I upgraded from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 last night on my Asus 1.33mhz ATOM cpu based laptop which I use for many things including some remote operating of my Flex 6300.  My main desktop has my primary Flex 6300 stuff on it (on a wired LAN connection).

The upgrade took quite a while and was NOT without a few "bumps" on the road to windows 10.  First off, it finished the installation with NO touchpad support.  I had to hook up a usb mouse.  I did manage to get the touchpad working though. by uninstalling all mouse drivers and letting Windows do the rest - this time Windows intalled the touchpad support.

Previous to the upgrade I had the latest SmartSDR and associated software (1.4.16) on the laptop working well (or at least as well as the laptop's WiFi lets it hihi).

After the installation (and fixing the touchpad)  I found that the SmartSDR still worked and I could connect to my 6300 and listen to digital transmissions on 20mtrs.  All seemed to be working well EXCEPT the SmartSDR CAT program.  The program itself did NOT show any virtual ports.  In the windows Hardware Manager it showed my 2 sets of virtual com ports - but showed that they were NOT operational.

My SmartSDR, DAX, and CAT were all 1.4.16

I uninstalled ALL versions of SmartSDR and ALL other associated Flex software and checked in Windows "Programs and Features" to make sure ALL Flex software was gone.

Then I rebooted and re-installed SmartSDR 1.4.16 and associated software.

All my virtual com ports made by SmartSDR CAT now work-- though they do NOT all show up in the CAT program itself.  Which is interesting ... But they all DO show up in Windows Hardware Manager and indicate they are working. 

And the virtual comports all do work.

So... the 6300 and DAX and CAT all seem working well with SmartSDR.  I had a phone (FM) QSO on 2mtrs (Elecraft X144V transverter) with no problems and had a 40 min Olivia mode digital 20mtr QSO using FLDigi with no problems.  I even think that perhaps the WiFi may be working better in Windows 10.  So all seems to be working well though SmartSDR CAT does NOT show all my virtual COM ports in its window or drop down.

All of the testing and contacts were made remotely from my easy chair.

I will probably upgrade my main desktop installation version 8.1 to version 10 when it tells me I can. I have an Acronis image backup if it doesn't work out well :-)
...  It should be interesting!

Gary WB8ROL

W2NER

I have been supporting the windows OS for over 20 years and one thing I learned is to wait about a year. Then upgrade.... I wish flex would port the smartsdr over to Mac.

Bob Brown - N8OB

It is interesting because all the interfaces I used in 8.1 for Logging, WSJT etc., don't indicate any connections in Win 10.  I sure would like an answer.

Rick Hadley - W0FG

I've been supporting Windows computers since Windows 2.0 (and Digital Research's GEM before that), through good versions and bad.  Win7 was supposed to be one of the good ones, but it gave me serious intermittent grief with SSDR.  Win 10 has been remarkably stable for a new release, and I'm happy with it.  I have no love for Apple, their overpriced hardware, or their corporate weltanschauung.  If SSDR was going to be ported anywhere other than Windows, I'd much prefer to see it on Linux as an alternative,, but the problem there is that all of the other tools, like HRD, SmartBridge, and DDUTIL are still Windows only.

Tim - W4TME

Gary - you should do a complete uninstall of SmartSDR before you upgrade to Win10.
https://helpdesk.flexradio.com/hc/en-us/articles/204975589-How-to-do-a-Complete-uninstall-of-SmartSD...

You can try a complete uninstall and then a reinstall and see if that helps.

Gary L. Robinson

Thanks Tim for the link to the article. I will definitely do just that when I get ready to upgrade my main desktop machine that I use for my Flex operation. The upgrade I did was on my Windows 8.1 laptop that I use for just remote operation. And it is essentially working fine now. The ONLY slight problem is that NOT all the virtual com ports are displayed in the SmartSDR CAT program EVEN though Windows 10 device manager shows them all AND they ALL work well. And I don't need any more. I just wanted to post this experience BUT there was NO real category I could post it to since I did NOT consider it an idea, praise, or really a problem hihi All working well on the laptop BUT will definitely uninstall all the Flex stuff on my main computer BEFORE it updates. Thanks again Tim. ---Gary WB8ROL

Bob - W7KWS -

I have been running SSDR on a couple of Windows 10 tablets for a month our so now with no issues after upgrading them from 8.1.

This morning I made a full image backup of my main Ham Radio PC, amounting to around 180-GB.  This PC has been running Windows 7 since Microsoft released it.  It's a six core AMD processor with 8-GB of RAM and a 250-GB SSD.

After feeling secure that I could rely on the backup image I uninstalled SSDR 1.4.16 and upgraded this PC to Windows 10.  I had no significant problems.  Here are the few things I did run into:

1.  The Windows 10 App, where you reserve your copy, said the upgrade would be available to me in a few days or weeks as some Intel drivers had not been released yet.  I couldn't remember any Intel things in this PC so I went to the Intel WEB site and downloaded their Driver utility which confirmed, "No Intel drivers Detected".

Since I'd downloaded a copy of Windows 10 to a thumb drive I decided to go ahead and see what my fate would be.

2.  Norton Ghost has been depreciated after Windows 7 and I've now removed it.  I will make images using the built in imaging facility buried deep in Windows 10.

3.  Somewhere along the way I had removed COM9 from the PC so when I reinstalled SSDR, it decided to use COM9 for CAT instead of COM 14 which I had been using under Windows 7. As a result all the software set to COM14 would have to be changed.

I decided that it was easier to move another port to COM9 temporarily, uninstall SSDR and reinstall it where CAT was then set to COM14, as I had expected, since all other COM ports, 1 through 13, were now in use.  There may be a way to designate this in CAT but I would have had to read the manual.  Instead, this took five minutes.

4. For an unknown reason the computer lost its membership to my Home Group.  Another five minutes to join up again and all is well.

To offer an idea of all the things that had to go well, this PC runs Ham Radio Deluxe, my TS-590S from both ARCP-590 and HRD, a TS-2000 using HDR and ARCP-2000, a Perseus using HDSDR, OmniRig, PstRotator, Remote Desktop Server, and much much more.

Included below is a screen shot. You can see that all is working well. 

Follow Tim's lead and his instructions and if you've kept your previous installation in good health and well documented as to COM Ports, Etc, it seems to go forward without a hitch.  Either that, or I'm just the luckiest guy on the planet. 

Three Windows 10 installations and counting.

73 & good luck!

Bob - W7KWS -

Update:

Windows 10 invalidated my Remote Desktop credentials from the settings I was using in Windows 7 on this machine.  To gain access to this PC I had to troubleshoot this & change the Remote Desktop setting to match my Microsoft logon credentials.  Then I had to change the credentials in four machines that I use to access this computer plus my Android phone. This was a negative experience in an otherwise positive upgrade today.

Two hours wasted for unknown reasons!

Bob - W7KWS -

One more PC upgraded from Windows 7 directly to Windows 10 today.  A Toshiba Laptop with an Intel I5.

The only problem I've noticed so far was that I got no Flex SSDR audio from the computer speakers in Remote mode despite hearing audio from other sources. 

I tried updating the RealTek sound card driver and got a report from searching  Windows update that I already had the best driver installed.  I then uninstalled the the RealTek sound card and scanned for new hardware.  This time Windows update downloaded a driver and installed it.

Bottom line, this solved the problem and I immediately got SSDR audio from the PC speakers.  I haven't done complete testing yet but everything else seems to be nominal so far.

I should have looked at the original driver version before uninstalling it for comparison with the download.  I've often wondered if updating a driver by searching Windows update was a foolproof way to find the latest and greatest.  I've received that report for drivers dated as far back as 2006.

73