Gravostyle 98 in Windows 7

[Lisa Higginbotham]

Is anyone by any chance running Gravostyle 98 to a rotary engraver (we have an IS400) but on a Windows 7 computer? We had to retire our Windows 98 machine and we replaced it with a Windows 7 machine running Windows 7 Professional because all our other computers are on this OS and it serves our network security well.


I installed my Gravostyle 98 on that computer and everything is doing what it should EXCEPT printing. I get a message telling me it cannot open the printer. I wonder if I need a different driver or if I don't have the port configured correctly. Anyone?


I did find something online that is freeware, but I always worry about that stuff and my network manager prohibits me from downloading that stuff, and rightfully so. Unless someone can tell me they use it and it works.


I know Grav 98 is no longer supported but it is an excellent program and I do not want to upgrade.

[Ross Moshinsky]

Gravostyle98 = Win98. You're going to need to upgrade. Good news for you is the newer versions are much better. The bad news for you is it's expensive and the software is still buggy.

[Kev Williams]

With all due respect, you don't need to upgrade your gravo98. I have 98, 5, 5.3 and 7, and the upgrades on the newer versions are nice, but not 3 or 4 grand nice... What you need to do to get it to work is to modify the post-processor. I had the same issue 2 months ago hooking up my IS7000/Gravo 5.3 to Windows 7, and at this very moment I'm having the same problem with the new computer the wife gave me, with Windows 8. My New Hermes rep fixed my Win7, and I need to compare the two post-processor's and figure out if I can just make my own adjustment for Win8. If I DO figure it out I'll post up the change... :)

[Dan Hintz]

Kev,

How about posting up the changes you made for Win7... someone out there will likely fall into this trap again.

[Lisa Higginbotham]

If you could figure out what the changes were to get it to work with Win 7 then maybe I could duplicate it.

[Liesl Dexheimer]

I have Win XP and a NH 3400 and was going to buy a new computer with Win 7. I know I will have to purchase a parallel port card for the NH dongle. Have you actually had sucess being able to run G '98 on a Win 7 computer?


With all due respect, you don't need to upgrade your gravo98. I have 98, 5, 5.3 and 7, and the upgrades on the newer versions are nice, but not 3 or 4 grand nice... What you need to do to get it to work is to modify the post-processor. I had the same issue 2 months ago hooking up my IS7000/Gravo 5.3 to Windows 7, and at this very moment I'm having the same problem with the new computer the wife gave me, with Windows 8. My New Hermes rep fixed my Win7, and I need to compare the two post-processor's and figure out if I can just make my own adjustment for Win8. If I DO figure it out I'll post up the change... :)

[David Somers]

Lisa,

Another possibility if you are not able to get Kev's solutions to work.

If your IT person is OK with this. Install a copy of VMWare on your Windows machine.
Then install Win98 and G'98 as a virtual machine inside of that.
Deny it access to the internet so it is not a networked virtual machine, and not subject to infection from the internet.
As you set up the machine in VMWare, establish a shared folder for it so that you can move files easily between the win 7 environment and the Win98 Virtual Machine.

My preference would be to fix the issue so Win 7 will do the job. But if push came to shove this would work and protect your network and machine in a way that IT may accept.

Dave

[Kev Williams]

Alas, I haven't had the the time- or the need honestly- to figure out the post processor changes my rep added for me. And he's been out of town almost constantly since the new year started- The change has to do with Gravostyle, the machine and the computer all agreeing on the name/number of the port that's being used for communication. In my case, my IS7000 connects via USB. A 3400 usually connects to an "EP Module", and the EP connects to the computer via a typical printer cable or a null-modem serial cable. If you have a free LPT port, Gravo should work fine with it as there's no special driver, just connect to the port, go to "add printer", choose the correct port, and when it ask which printer, choose "generic text driver":



http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/textdriver.jpg


then pick a name for the machine, etc...


The Gravograph IS machines use a "GT Smartstream" driver, which is specific to Gravograph (I assume). If you have the GS software, browse the disk for GT Smartstream, and you should be able to install it. Whether the machine will run or not may be a crap shoot, and why my post processor had to be changed so my IS7000 would run using my Win7 computer.

Oddly enough, my Win8 computer loaded up the Gravostyle-7 version GT smartstream driver and runs my little IS400 PS just fine. The older versions of Gravostyle don't support the point-n-shoot function, but otherwise it will run the machine. But Win8 refuses to load a generic text driver, nor will it load my ULS or L-solution laser drivers. So I have all these machines, and Win8 will run the IS 400, and MAYBE my IS7000. Thanks for the upgrades, microsoft... :mad:

Hopefully SOON I can get Bruce (my rep) to fill me in on how to change the PP...


===================

[Mark Ross]

If you have a dongle, you need an old machine. An OLD machine. The old dongles are not compatible with the serial and parallel ports on the newer computers. And get ready for sticker shock if you are going to upgrade your software...

We had our computer die, and they wanted to charge us more than the cost of a brand new machine to upgrade. They actually had the nerve to demand all the back maintenance fees (we were not on maintenance).

We went to a ham radio swap, found two old clunkers and now we have a backup system if this other one ever dies.

They are the absolute worst company I have ever dealt with and I would never buy any of their products as long as they have the ridiculous draconian laws in place.

[Cole Harrison]

Hi Mark,

I can actually provide some more details regarding this. It is not essential to have an old computer in order to pick up the dongle on the serial or parallel port. I have dug around and discovered that the dongle was made by a company called Rainbow originally, which was bought out by another company called Sentinel. If you go to their website ( http://www.safenet-inc.com/support-downloads/sentinel-drivers/ ) and download the "Sentinel Protection Installer", you will be able to run the dongle on newer computers using a PCI-E / PCI-x expansion card that provides LPT and serial ports.

I can verify that this works as I have already set up a new computer that didn't have an onboard LPT port and used the drivers above in order to get the GravoStyle software to detect the dongle. The only issue I did run into is that the GravoStyle software seems to require a serial port on the motherboard because I believe the values are hard coded, but I will try this again when I have time in order to get it working with a serial port on a PCI-E / PCI-x expansion card.

I have not yet had a chance to test GravoStyle in Windows 7, but I believe that if it does run, you can get around the dongle not being found by using Sentinels drivers.

[Chad Cox]

Hi Cole,

Thanks for that tip. I am running Gravostyle 5.3 and trying to upgrade my XP machines to Windows 7 Pro. Using the above mentioned drivers I am able to run Gravostyle using the parallel dongle in the PCI-E expansion port. The trouble now is that I can't seem to get Gravostyle to recognize the IS-8000 in the serial ports. I also have a USB IS control box but get the same results.

Any ideas?

[Cole Harrison]

Hi Chad,

Sorry for the extremely late reply. I expect the Gravostyle software is having trouble using the serial port, or is using the wrong port all together.

I expect you have already tried this, but to get an idea of what has been tried already, have you tried to specify the serial port (that the IS8000 is connected to) to use in the Gravostyle software?
As mentioned in my previous post, I expect the Gravostyle software has hard coded locations at which to find the serial port, this was common way back when windows 95 and 98 were new. I have not as yet had a need to try reverse this and get it working.

[Nebojsa Jovanovic]

I had the same problem with IS400 and IS700.
We had some upgraded GS98 LPT dongle that worked with GS 5.3.
However, there was no chance to make this dongle work with Win7.
Thus, we upgraded to GS7 with new dongle.
It was reasonable price. About 350 euros.

I also have USB dongle that doesn't work with GS7 (they changed allowed dongle manufacturers ).

So, it all depends of dongle type. If it's Rainbow, there is no chance to make it work in Win7/GS7.

[Kev Williams]

LPT dongles? I've always had USB dongles...

http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/gsdongle.JPG


starting with Gravo 98 that's been upgraded twice to 5.0 and 5.3, plus I have another 5.3 that came with my used IS7000, and a 7 Discovery that came with my IS400.

Previously in this thread I mentioned editing the post processor, but never did get back to it... Now's my chance!

I've found that Win7 simply won't recognize, or "open" any installed printers from within Gravostyle after you insert it as a machine. When you go to connect to driver, GS says "can't open *** printer" or something to that effect. However, the program can still use the print drivers. What the program won't access isn't the printer itself but the SPOOLER. Why, I don't know.

Now for the post processor. When you click on "Engrave" and "configure machines", your printers should come up. Double click the printer you want, and the properties menu will come up, shown below the 'setup more' (post processor) dialog box in the pic. The "More" button brings you to the post processor as shown. Scroll down about 3 pages and you'll get to where I am here.
What you're looking for specifically is "PORT=" and "PORTDESCR=" ---
The port should equal "1", typically. However, sometimes another number makes it work, like 2 or 3 etc. depending on your ports. If the port equals zero, then it's shut off...
The port description is very important, as it MUST MATCH THE EXACT NAME of your printer exactly! I've inset a screenshot snip from my computers "printers" menu, note all spacing and CAPS match.

You can change the port value and printer name right in the dialog box. Then save it...
NOTE, to be safe, before messing with the post processor, you can copy the entire PP page and paste it in Notepad, then save it. If something goes awry after editing, you can always erase the PP dialog box and paste the notepad version back in.

Hope this is of some help. :)



http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/postp.jpg

[Pablo Saval]

Hi to all:

I made it work perfectly under windows 7 after reading this post. I did configured it all and later, configuring the machine, changed the:
PORTDESCR=mis impresoras\IS200
to
PORTDESCR=IS200

I was pretty happy and everything worked well.

The problem came after I did the upgrade to Windows 10, and now when I do the print to the tool, windows notifications says (translated from spanish)


Printer on error status
'IS200' is in error status

Any idea of the problem/sollution?

[Julian Ashcroft]

I have old engraving software working on a Windows 7 machine, but it won't work on a 64bit version only the 32bit version.

[Chris Andriessen]

Well sorry that i am a couple years late but, for anyone still looking for a solution instead of upgrading.
I found the solution for Windows 10 x64.

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?274434-Installing-Gravostyle-5-or-98-on-Windows-10-x64-TUT (https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?274434-Installing-Gravostyle-5-or-98-on-Windows-10-x64-TUT)

[Kev Williams]

Julian, Chris's install method does work, I had to do the same thing to install Gravo 5.3 on this computer, which is a win7pro64. And I just now did it with my Gravo 98-
procedure is simple, just right click the install or setup program, click 'check compatibility', then hit 'try reinstalling with the recommended settings', hit 'next', and the settings should be WinXP service pack 2... if so, start the program..

Now, when I did this, the setup programs said it was 'searching for an installed version of DAO.exe' -- and then it hung... or so I thought- Task manager kept saying 'not responding', so I killed it, a few times. Finally I just lit it sit, and it was maybe 3 of 4 minutes later, the install screen popped up, and it installed just fine! I'm sure it'll work fine, but since I have 5.3 installed on this computer, which uses the same dongle, the dongle won't work on 98 unless I uninstall 5.3, which I'd rather not do ;)...

Anyway, try it, and good luck--

[Charles Glenn]

Cole,

I'm just going to reply to this very old thread/post so that when a dead HDD happens to me again, I won't spend 2 days trying to figure out a reinstall. I know I'll come back and look up this thread!

I had Gravostyle '98 with a Parallel dongle successfully installed on a Win7 PC. HDD died. I had an identical Win7 PC - they're Optiplex 790s - and moved the PCI parallel card over and couldn't get past the "Dongle is not present" message. I read this thread over and over until it stuck in my mind that I had a Sentinel install folder on the dead drive. In 2020, you can find the driver at https://supportportal.gemalto.com/csm?id=kb_article_view&sys_kb_id=f4f769ae37950f44cc47261953990e44&sysparm_article=KB0016451 (I'll have to save a copy somewhere in my dropbox).

So I DL'd and installed it and was sure this was going to get me past the dongle message. I cringed when it didn't but then by chance, I thought maybe try to reinstall the driver. I started to but chose the modify option instead which revealed that only the USB system driver is installed in a default installation. I ticked to install the parallel driver as well, rebooted for safe measure and voila, I made it to 'Add a machine'.

I have a Trophymaster; I think you choose IS400 HPGL 2D. Is that right if anyone is listening?