Appeal For P2P Bug Reports

Post by **Programmer** » Wed 28 Mar, 2007 2:06 pm

We are only a matter of days away from the proposed 'Go Live' date for version 8, and (thanks to some feedback from Dominatrix) it has become apparent that there is a problem stopping windows Vista users from successfully accessing the P2P tool.

I think there will be time to fix this, but it has really made me focus on the need to get any bugs reported and sorted out A.S.A.P.

I would really like to encourage anyone who might have tried unsuccesfully to connect or share some decks to let me know, so we can try and work out why. It is much easier to try to fix these things at beta stage than when the program is released and lots of people will be inconvenienced by any testing and debugging.

Thank you all for your help!

Post by **Ralf** » Sun 01 Apr, 2007 9:59 pm

I'm testing 8.0.0.8 under Vista Ultimate running in a VMWare virtual machine: the program runs great but the deck exchange doesn't work. What does it mean when the Do Test button is grayed out? :)

I've manually opened port 3999...

Let me know if there's anything you want me to try since it's a test setup in a VM: I can change major things without worrying about it...

Post by **Programmer** » Mon 02 Apr, 2007 11:17 am

Hi Ralph,

Did you get the UAC dialog come up when you started the program - it should request permission to run the program as an admin user? I am not particularly happy with that because admin rights are only required for one single operation that the program does (writing a registry key to HKLM), and this is something that will only happen when someone uses the P2P tool, but permissions have to be established when the program is launched, so at the moment it will have to remain that way.

Anyway, the P2P might not work if you didn't assign those elevated permissions, or it could just be that it won't work the first time but it will after a reboot. Given that I just downloaded Fake Plastic Planet with no problems I guess it was the latter case and the tool is now working. Could you confirm that?

The test button will only be available 1) after you have connected on the main form and 2) assuming you are sharing at least one deck. I expect you went straight into the Add Decks form without connecting first.

Cheers,
Richard

Post by **Ralf** » Tue 03 Apr, 2007 5:14 am

Yes, the UAC dialog *did* come up - I was wondering why. Boy, Vista is going to be a PITA for authors and users - think how many other programs do just one admin thing - hope there's a workaround eventually.

I wasn't clear before: Fake Plastic Planet was shared from my XP SP2 setup. I'm glad but not surprised that it worked. :)

The Vista test rig is in a VM on a laptop, and so is only up while I test. The Tarot program itself is fine, but the File Exchange is really slow. Slow to connect, slow to request the 00 card, and so slow to request a deck that it gives up after about 5 minutes. I dunno, maybe it's my setup. If other Vista users aren't seeing that, it's probably me!

Vista steps: I did connect, and then shared one of the two default decks. But the test button is disabled... I'll reboot and try it again...

Post by **Programmer** » Tue 03 Apr, 2007 6:21 pm

Hi Ralph,

I can't imagine it would have anything to do with Vista per se. I am guessing you have the two machines on a home network, so whichever is connected directly to the router might get a better download speed. If you wanted to compare you could go to www.speedtest.net (I know there are a million and one speed tests on the net, but this one has a very cool interface!).

Of course, it would also depend a lot on the upload speed of whoever is sharing the deck, so it might well be that you are not strictly comparing like with like.

Richard

Post by **Dominatrix** » Tue 03 Apr, 2007 6:31 pm

Well, AFAIK the UAC jumps almost everytime you want to do something: open Control Panel, delete an entry on All Programs menu, copy a wallpaper into adequate folder, anything. Otherwise than previous versions of the Beta, this one is installed with the Run As Administrator privilege (you'll see kind of a shield with Windows colors over the usual Orphalese icon), hence the UAC asks for permissions every time you open the program. Richard feared other adverse reactions due to Vista, but no one showed up.

As for the connection speed, guess it depends on the server and the traffic: yesterday, when I opened the File Exchange, it connected quick as a fox. Today, still has not connected while I write this. Take into account that WMWare is kind of an emulation with high virtualization, it can never be as fast as a native Vista installation.

I don't know why people is so reluctant to install Vista. For me is working like a charm, exception made of some tiny problems I've solved with little effort. Hardware, the worst nightmare in these cases, worked OK from the very first moment. The migration form Millennium to XP was more troublesome for me than this one, take my honest word. Still I have an operative XP on another hard-disk (and a Mac Os X Tiger on a third one, but that's a horse of another colour), but I see it boring and cumbersome now compared with Vista. Sooner or later, we'll have to change, so I decided to be an early bird (got it next day of its European premiere), and I'm not regretting of this. Best.

Post by **Ralf** » Wed 04 Apr, 2007 4:50 am

Hmm, I just tried it in a XP VM and the Do Test button was grayed out at first, and unlocked after I registered the the copy of the program. But now I've decactivated the test XP registration machine in my user account, and I'm stuck: I can't reactivate it again!

Dom: the VMWare product acquits itself nicely for testing. I'd say it's only 10-15 slower based on XP. And Vista runs well in it (no Aero tho). I think you're right: net traffic may have been the culprit yesterday...

Post by **Dominatrix** » Wed 04 Apr, 2007 7:17 pm

I know VMWare well, it is widely used, and the first tool that allowed to install Mac OS X on a plain PC... I'm not a stranger to OS emulation myself, worked a lot of time with Virtual PC both in Mac and Windows environments before Microsoft adquired Connectix and ruined totally the idea. I've acomplished virtual feats with it like install and run Sun Solaris 7 under Windows XP... That's why I know that emulation has its little glitches and it's never 100 percent faithful to the original, IMHO... specially with something so picky like Vista. Best.