|
Vista Survival Guide
Vista has a few things going for it, like better
memory management, but I think any of us who have made the
switch have had more than our share of headaches.
Home Domination supports Vista as of build 170,
which came out on 11/29/2007. However there are some
things that just don't work quite as nicely as they did in XP.
So this page gives you some information on how to deal with the
issues.
Manually Disabling the X10 Service
The biggest problem with Vista involves the CM15A and the
CM19A. Home Domination does it's own communication with
these devices rather than relying on the X10 Service that comes
with Active Home Pro. However, this can conflict with X10
Service. Sometimes it works fine, other times it doesn't.
In XP, Home Domination will automatically disable the X10
Service, and restart it again when the program closes. In
Vista, this does not work because of the increased security.
So you'll need to manually disable the service when it clashes
with Home Domination.
You can restart the service when you're done using Home
Domination, however there's no need to restart the service
unless you want to use Active Home Pro.
|
To disable the service, you can go to Control Panel, then
Administrative Tools, and then double click on Services.
You'll need to have administrator rights to do this, and it will ask
your permission to continue. Then scroll all the way down to
the bottom of the list and look for the "X10 Device Network
Service". Then right click on it and click "Stop". It
will take a few seconds and then the service will stop. To
restart the service again (when Home Domination is no longer
running), right click on the service and click "Start".
The most common problem that happens is that Home Domination will
appear to never start, although macros and switching will happen as
normal. When the service is stopped, sometimes the main
control window will just magically appear and all will be well.
Other times, you may need to bring up Task Manager (right click on
an empty place on the task bar and select "Task Manager", or hit
CTRL-ALT-DEL and select "Start Task Manager"), then click on the
"Processes" tab, and find "HomeDom.exe". Click on
"HomeDom.exe", then click the "End Process" button and when the
confirmation message is displayed, click "End Process". Then
restart Home Domination as normal. At this point, it should
come up just fine.
|
VA11A
While this isn't a Home Domination problem, it is
a problem that's tough to get around. I found a post here:
http://www.x10community.com/forums/index.php?topic=13179.msg68678
with a solution that may help. It worked for me. I'm
using the 32 bit version of Vista. I rather doubt it would
work with the 64 bit Vista, although I'll be happy to eat my words.
Just in case that link goes away at some point,
here's a re-print (with thanks to Dave):
Some of this may need to be done as the
administrator.
1. After installing the drivers along with
ActiveHome/Iwitness or Vanguard or with X10Drivers.exe, plug in tha
VA11A
2. Vista will attempt and fail to install the drivers.
3. Navigate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\X10\DriverInstall\VA11A
Video Capture"
4. Open the file CA506AV.inf in Notepad and find the following
section: [Note from Harry: You can edit files that
are normally not allowed to be edited by right clicking on Notepad
and selecting "Run As Administrator" then opening the file.]
[SPCA506AV.CopyDrivers]
CA506AV.SYS
STREAM.SYS
[SPCA506AV.CopyCodec]
IYUV_32.DLL
MSH263.DRV
5. Change that section as shown below... (add semicolons in front
of 3 lines...
[SPCA506AV.CopyDrivers]
CA506AV.SYS
;STREAM.SYS
[SPCA506AV.CopyCodec]
;IYUV_32.DLL
;MSH263.DRV
6. Save the file, and close notepad
7. In the device manager (Right-Click on "My Computer" and choose
Manage) Expand the USB section and find the VA11A that should show
up there as a non-working device.
8. Open the device, and chooose "Re-install driver". Tell vista you
want to locate the driver yourself, and browse to the folder above.
9. Vista should warn you the driver is unsigned, but allow you to
install anyway.
------------------------
As an option, you may want to edit the .inf file *before* plugging
in the VA11A... I suspect that would work also, but did not try it
myself. You would still get a "install failed" message when vista
attempts to install the "audio" portion of the capture device. That
shouldn't matter, as the VA11A doesn't support audio anyway.
|
|