Odd serial port issue

[Curious Pineapple]

I've had a long standing issue with any verison of Windows higher than XP and serial ports. It first started with Ingenico card terminals. I can communicate with them fine and load software with no issues, however whenever I try to update the OS itself, I have to use XP. The loader software copies the system files, instructs the terminal to install them, then initiates a reboot of the terminal. The last step never happens unless using XP. Not that much of an issue as I rarely need to reload the OS and I have an XP desktop available and also a laptop. I should add that this is using the terminals built in USB to serial converter.

 

Recently I have been attempting to get Windows 7 installed on an NCR RealPos21 (bit old but it was real cheap for development). XP worked fine, however with 7 I couldn't get the touch panel to work. A whole evening was spent trying drivers from other vendors, generic drivers and drivers from other panels (that should work as there is a bit of a standard for touch interfacing). NCR say to install the USB drivers, which don't work. The config software for the panel checks all COM ports (1-6) and it always hung on 5, then closed. Got to the point where I thought I had damaged the panel by reseating all internal connections after cleaning dust out of the unit.

 

Today I got a new HDD for it (to try Linux without risking loosing the old XP install) and just out of curiosity (and to see what XP made of the hardware), I installed XP fresh on a new drive, installed touch drivers and selected USB, and nothing. Uninstalled and tried again with RS232 drivers. Before they had finished installing I had a working touch panel again.

 

I've been doing a lot of googling on this issue and a lot of results seem to suggest timing issues with W7 and serial ports, but it seems unlikely that them issues would have carried on, and made it into 8, 8.1 and now 10.

 

I've developed my application on Windows due to no Linux support for my development system's printer (NCR F309). I've been trying everything I can find to get my application (.Net 4.5 based) to run on XP with no success. As this is only a test and demo unit, the security of the system isn't too critical.

 

Any thoughts on this issue? I'm not too bothered which OS I use (XP or 7) so long as I have noth a working touch panel and can run .net 4.5 applications.

 

Thanks for any help

[Guest]

Are your drivers supported on Windows 7?

 

And as far as I know, .net 4.5 doesn't exist for Windows XP.

[Curious Pineapple]

Just now, timl132 said:

Are your drivers supported on Windows 7?

 

And as far as I know, .net 4.5 doesn't exist for Windows XP.

Drivers should be. I found another POS manufacturer with the same touch controller, and when I downloaded thier Win 7 drivers it was the exact same driver package that was already on the system, and that I had downloaded from NCR.

 

.net doesn't exist for XP. Mono was suggested as it at one point supported 4.5 and ran on XP but I can't get it to install. I can target 4.0 and make a few tweaks to my code, but it's the 3rd party packages I use that require 4.5.

 

Just as I'm typing this I've finished running Windows updates on it and Mono installed fine. Won't run though, not a valid win32 application. Progress though

[r4tch3t]

9 minutes ago, Curious Pineapple said:

I've had a long standing issue with any verison of Windows higher than XP and serial ports. It first started with Ingenico card terminals. I can communicate with them fine and load software with no issues, however whenever I try to update the OS itself, I have to use XP. The loader software copies the system files, instructs the terminal to install them, then initiates a reboot of the terminal. The last step never happens unless using XP. Not that much of an issue as I rarely need to reload the OS and I have an XP desktop available and also a laptop. I should add that this is using the terminals built in USB to serial converter.

 

Recently I have been attempting to get Windows 7 installed on an NCR RealPos21 (bit old but it was real cheap for development). XP worked fine, however with 7 I couldn't get the touch panel to work. A whole evening was spent trying drivers from other vendors, generic drivers and drivers from other panels (that should work as there is a bit of a standard for touch interfacing). NCR say to install the USB drivers, which don't work. The config software for the panel checks all COM ports (1-6) and it always hung on 5, then closed. Got to the point where I thought I had damaged the panel by reseating all internal connections after cleaning dust out of the unit.

 

Today I got a new HDD for it (to try Linux without risking loosing the old XP install) and just out of curiosity (and to see what XP made of the hardware), I installed XP fresh on a new drive, installed touch drivers and selected USB, and nothing. Uninstalled and tried again with RS232 drivers. Before they had finished installing I had a working touch panel again.

 

I've been doing a lot of googling on this issue and a lot of results seem to suggest timing issues with W7 and serial ports, but it seems unlikely that them issues would have carried on, and made it into 8, 8.1 and now 10.

 

I've developed my application on Windows due to no Linux support for my development system's printer (NCR F309). I've been trying everything I can find to get my application (.Net 4.5 based) to run on XP with no success. As this is only a test and demo unit, the security of the system isn't too critical.

 

Any thoughts on this issue? I'm not too bothered which OS I use (XP or 7) so long as I have noth a working touch panel and can run .net 4.5 applications.

 

Thanks for any help

You'll need to write your own drivers... 

Those POS terminals usually have proprietary hardware in them and the driver made for that windows version so it wont work on other OSs.

.net 4.5 isn't supported on xp. 

So write your own drivers for the POS terminal screen etc. or step down to .Net 4.0

[Curious Pineapple]

Just now, r4tch3t said:

You'll need to write your own drivers... 

Those POS terminals usually have proprietary hardware in them and the driver made for that windows version so it wont work on other OSs.

.net 4.5 isn't supported on xp. 

So write your own drivers for the POS terminal screen etc. or step down to .Net 4.0

It's a custom board but all standard hardware. Windows (XP and 7) have drivers for all hardware in it except the Realtek audio chipset. It seems to be a related serial port issue (this issue and the Ingenico terminals) as the drivers for the Aures Odysse system (which uses the same touch controller) support Windows 7 and are the same ones that I already have, same down the the revision and directory structure of the installer.

[Curious Pineapple]

I've found an ugly but hopefully working solution to this problem. Installed latest version of Virtual Box that supports XP hosts and so far so good, I have touch support in the windows 7 installer as VBox detected it and is passing touches through to the guest as a virtual tablet

 

Will be a bit slow on a Celeron M 1.3 but as long as I can get my webcam passed through it should run just fine, it's not an intensive application.

[r4tch3t]

Nice work, I'm impressed. 

1 hour ago, Curious Pineapple said:

I've found an ugly but hopefully working solution to this problem. Installed latest version of Virtual Box that supports XP hosts and so far so good, I have touch support in the windows 7 installer as VBox detected it and is passing touches through to the guest as a virtual tablet

 

Will be a bit slow on a Celeron M 1.3 but as long as I can get my webcam passed through it should run just fine, it's not an intensive application.

You could also try using a different usb to serial adaptor, might work without the vm.

Most of my experience with serial communication has been with microcontrollers and sensors which have always just worked, as long as I wired them up correctly and selected the right baud rate, didn't have to worry about drivers. 

2 hours ago, Curious Pineapple said:

It's a custom board but all standard hardware.

Was more meaning the touch interface and any non standard parts sorry. 

[Curious Pineapple]

2 minutes ago, r4tch3t said:

You could also try using a different usb to serial adaptor, might work without the vm.

Most of my experience with serial communication has been with microcontrollers and sensors which have always just worked, as long as I wired them up correctly and selected the right baud rate, didn't have to worry about drivers.

It uses one of the hardware serial ports, not USB as the manufacturer states. Not sure how they got that wrong.

 

I'm better with microcontrollers than arsing around with this but I'm not too inclined to develop something this large on microcontrollers. Would need one hell of a micro to run a node for "insert coin here".

[Curious Pineapple]

16 hours ago, timl132 said:

Are your drivers supported on Windows 7?

 

And as far as I know, .net 4.5 doesn't exist for Windows XP.

I managed to find a driver one revision higher from another manufacturer that works fine. The software still says no device found, and Windows says no touch input available but it works.