Denford Software & Machines

We have always ran Easimill sofware from computers on a network and downloaded the programmes via a data link cable to the mills without any problems using original Denford software that we purchased some years ago. The PC's have now been replaced with new ones running XP. This has created a couple of problems

1. When we connect the dongles XP does not recognise them and says "security key not connected".
So we downloaded from this site the free version and that does work on the XP machines, except the send and receive programme feature (machine transfer)will not work. We have overcome this by saving the programmes to floppy disks and connecting up one of our old original PC's to the machine remotely where we then download from the floppy. This however is not a very satisfactory method.

All PC's running as stand alone units, will run with the dongles, without any problems. The problem seems to be with the network and possibly administration rights?

2. The other problem is that the free downloaded version suddenly became not visible on the monitor. It is a series of lines across the monitor screen and gives a similar appearance to when there is no monitor driver. It was ok the last time it was used and this problem occurred when the PC is started up. If we quit the software then the monitor works perfectly ok?

Does anybody have any answers to these problems please?

My question is: why have you changed to XP when everything was working fine before ?

If you need to have access to Network drives, its still possible with DOS 6.22 (I know because we still have a DOS computer that can map network drives)

Most of the old DOS software will appear to work on XP, but in reality it isn't reliable, and all kinds of unusual problems occur.

I suggest going back to an old OS (maybe FreeDOS will work along with the XP network? https://www.freedos.org),
or try running VMWare player (setup a virtual DOS / win3.11 machine inside XP - this works well for old Denford software we have used it before)

The monitor problem sounds like an incompatible screen driver

open up your EASIMILL.GO file (it's a text file and can be edited with DOS EDIT or Window Notepad) and change the line that reads

EGA.CRT

to

EGA2.CRT
or
VGA.CRT

(or if it already reads one of these then change it to another

Thankyou fro the replies. The reason for using XP m/c's is that we are a training centre with learners who are currently on their first year of their apprenticeships. The old pc's were slow and old hat and replaced as a matter of ongoing updating. They are also used on a network for things other than cnc.

afw38

In that case, I can only suggest trying out a virtual DOS installation inside XP with something like VMware player.

Like I say, all our niggles running old software on XP and a new PC went away when we used this method.
You end up running the old software as though it were in DOS (because it is DOS that's installed), yet still able to use XP for other things at the same time.

Just had a look at their site, and it looks like this software is free now (we paid for it a couple years ago)
https://www.vmware.com/products/player/

Take a look at DOSBox software too (menetioned in this post: viewtopic.php?t=844 )

It runs as an IBM-PC AT emulator inside XP and so gives your DOS app access to all the drives & network drives that XP has.