Astrodatabank4 runs on Windows 7 and Windows 10, Webupdate problems.

[Alois Treindl]

I have recently had to reinstall Astrodatabank 4 on a new Windows
system, because our old Windows 2003 server is going out of service.

(Windows 2003 Server is a server variant of Windows XP).

*** The good news:

using an ADB install CDROM from 2006, I have been abe to get
Astrodatabank 4.0 up and running on:
Windows 7 (32-bit edition)
Windows 10 (32-bit edition).

I have so far not been able to get it running on Windows 10 - 64-bit
edition.

We will publish detailed install instructions.

The most important point:
The install program proposes the default install location
c:\program files\AstroDatabank4
Do NOT accept this default location. Create a separate directory, for
example
c:\mysoft
and tell the install program to install in
c:\mysoft\AstroDatabank4
The reason is that modern Windows system place severe restrictions on
everything inside the \program files
directory, which makes running ADB more difficult than it should be.


*** The bad news:

1. The Astrodatabank install CDROM we have at Astrodienst contains two
different viruses.

So far, attempts to remove the viruses from the CDROM have failed. I can
remove them, but then the install program misses some files and the
install fails.

However, this is less of a problem than it seems.
What I have done is install the free antivirus software Avira (from
Avira.com). Only the Free Antivirus program is needed, nothing else of
what they offer. This program catches the virus after the ADB installation.

2. The Webupdate feature runs out of memory with a fresh install.

Since Astrodienst took over Astrodatabank in 2008, it has continued to
provide data for the software's WebUpdate feature. Now the number of new
or changed data records is approaching 40'000.

If one installs a new ADB copy from the CDROM, it will try to load all
the webupdate data at once - there is not option in the software to
select a sub-set of data.

Due to an internal limitation, which I assume is around 32'000 data
records, the Webupdate program is not able to digest the downloaded
data. It stops with an error message.

I have not found an easy way around this problem. As I am myself
controlling the server which provides the update data, I have been able
to work around it by putting less data on the update server, then run a
first webupdate. Then putting the rest of the data on the update server,
run webupdate again.

This is not an option for a user outside of Astrodienst.

What we will offer is putting a current fully updated version of
PlacidusDatabank.mdb for download on our server, which can be downloaded
manually and made available for users with the PC software.
Detailed instructions will be published.

I need your help:
-----------------
If you have in your possession an Install CDROM of Astrodatabank4 which
is older than 2006, I would like you to extract some files from it and
email them to me. I hope to get hold of a virus-free version of the
install software, that way.

The files I need from the install CDROM are:
ADBDll.exe approx. 230 kb
ADBSet.exe approx. 900 kb
ADBSetL.exe approx. 50 kb
ADBProgs.exe approx. 920 kb

Please get your old Astrodatabank4 install CDROM out of a drawer, mount
it on your computer and look at the files it contains.

If you see those, pack them into a zip-archive and email that as an
attachment to al...@astro.ch

Thank you for your assistance.

[Francois CARRIERE]

Alois,

I use ADB on Win 7, 64 bits.

I think the main problem may be Access2000: it's probably an old 16bits installation program. from the ADB Install CD, copy the Access installation prog to an old system which accepts this old software and unzip it there.Than copy on USB key to install it to the new Windows system. Use a directory on the root disk, such as C:\ADB4. Windows capricious running way (Admin properties, etc) will be bypassed.

Best regards,

François

--
-- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ADBusers group. To post to this group, send email to adbu...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to adbusers+u...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/adbusers
--- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ADBusers" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to adbusers+u...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Webmaster Astrodienst]

On 22.01.16 19:50, Francois CARRIERE wrote:
> Alois,
>
> I use ADB on Win 7, 64 bits.
>
> I think the main problem may be Access2000: it's probably an old 16bits
> installation program. from the ADB Install CD, copy the Access
> installation prog to an old system which accepts this old software and
> unzip it there.Than copy on USB key to install it to the new Windows
> system. Use a directory on the root disk, such as C:\ADB4. Windows
> capricious running way (Admin properties, etc) will be bypassed.
>
> Best regards,
> François

Dear François

I think the Acess2000 installation went fine. I followed your instructions.

But the ADB installation itself hangs at each point. It starts one after
the other the unpacking of self-extracting archives, like ADBSet.exe,
ADBSetL.exe etc, and each of these hangs indefinitely, it does not
progress unless I kill it. Then the next one starts.

I have tried disabling anti virus software (which I don't do easily,
because of the viruses on my install disk), but it did not help.

For the moment, I have given up.

It is possible that Windows 10 has more severe protection mechanism. The
surpising thin is that on Windows 10-32 the installation worked.

I will give Windows 10-64 another try.

If you have such a system and can try to find a way, I woud very much
appreciate it.

At Astrodienst our goal is to have a single Windows system, which is
Winows 10-64, and of course I would like to have our reference ADB
installation on exactly that machine.

Regards

Alois

[Wendy Guy]

Hi Alois,

I was following this conversation but then I got tied up with other things and am just getting back to it now. Alois, what exactly is needed to enable software users to continue to be able to update? I believe you said it might help for you to have a file from the pre-2006 version of AstroDataBank. I think I might know someone who bought it before 2006, but it was ADB-3 rather than the final version 4. Would that do? I trust you've already been in contact with previous owners of ADB to see if they might still have backups?

I really don't want to lose the ability to keep my ADB up to date if possible. What can I do to help?

Many thanks,
Wendy