Win10 Pro and Maxim DL5

[astrobry]

Hi all,

My Observatory PC crashed and I installed another PC running Windows10 Pro.  All the packages I needed I was able to install with the exception of MaximDL 5. I know it's an old version but works perfectly for what I need. After installation and startup, 'as admin' I get the fill-in window for the serial-key. After filling it in, the OK button remains greyed out and I cannot proceed.  As a test, I installed it on my laptop with windows 10 Home version and it works perfectly there.  Anyone have an idea what the problem is here?  Is Maxim DL 5 compatible with Windows 10 Pro ?

thanks in advance !

Erik

[Oddsocks]

Hi Erik

AFAIK MaxIm DL5 is compatible with Windows 10/11 Pro, at least, I have it had it running with ASCOM device simulators on both Windows 10 and 11 virtual machines in a Mac environment.

When starting up MDL5 for the installation and registration it should not be run “As Administrator” until the installation is complete and the registration is successful, you must start up MaxIm “As administrator” one-time-only after the installation and registration is completed so that MaxIm’s scripting and automation interface is registered with Windows scripting host but that has no effect on the licence registration process.

I would start by making sure that Windows .NET 3.5 is enabled in Windows Features and Options and that your regional date and number format options are set correctly in Windows.

You also should have installed the ASCOM platform prior to installing MaxIm.

Beside the above, manually install the latest Windows C++ redistributable packages for both x86 and x64 architecture (you need both x86 and x64 redistributable runtime packages installed on a 64bit Windows machine to run 32bit applications written in the C and C++ language).

You can find the x86/x64 C++ redistributable installation packages on this Microsoft webpage under the section heading ”Visual Studio 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2022”:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-GB/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170

If none of the above is of help then post your question on the Diffraction Limited forum for access to the developers:

https://forum.diffractionlimited.com

HTH

William.

[astrobry]

Hello Wiliam,

thanks for the quick response !
I've done all the steps you mentioned, but apparently I can't get through to registration. The OK button remains 'greyed out' and cannot be activated.

Erik.

[Oddsocks]

Hi Erik.

Can you try copy and paste from your original v5 license email into the registration fields instead of typing in manually?

Unfortunately the only machine I can try my own old copy of MaxIm DL5 on is a Windows 11 Pro virtual machine running on a Mac, I can try that tomorrow and see if it will register there and update the thread later.

If you can register v5 on your Win 10 Home machine ok it doesn’t make much sense that it won’t register on the Win 10 Pro machine also, and in the few cases when this has been reported on the MaxIm forum it was due to the date and number format on the target machine being incorrect so that the registration applet was not recognising the license expiry date as valid and I recall one reported problem caused by an incorrect keyboard map that was inserting a hidden character in the user name and email address line, if you can use copy and paste from the original license email instead of typing in the registration details then a keyboard mapping issue can be ruled out.

I’ll try installing v5 on my Win 11 VM and let you know how that works out tomorrow.

William.

[Oddsocks]

Hello Erik.

This morning I installed MaxIm Dl 5 (v5.24) on a virgin copy of a Windows 11 PRO VM and as as expected it installed and registered correctly.

There is no reason that it should not install and register on your Windows 10 Pro machine.

If my advice to use copy and paste from your original license email (or a .pdf or .txt copy of that email) into the registration applet does not work even though you have confirmed that your number and date format, regional language options and keyboard mapping is correct for your new Windows 10 machine then you will need to contact Diffraction Limited via the support forum for specialist help:

https://forum.diffractionlimited.com/

It's possible that when you were trying to register while running MaxIm  under "As Administrator" elevation that it has saved some corrupted keys in the Windows registry, you will need the help of Diffraction Limited support staff to tell you which keys in the registry need to be manually deleted so that you can begin again.

HTH

William.

[Colin Haig]

Best bet is contact Diffraction for help: https://diffractionlimited.com/

Version 5 is over a decade old.  You'll need to supply the DL folks with your serial number and email address.

 

[astrobry]

OK, thanks for the support and hints !  i'll contact diffractionlimited support.