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MSP-FET430PIF fails in Windows 7

Other Parts Discussed in Thread: MSP-FET

I have a very old parallel port  MSP430-FET430PIF. It is still working great with Windows XP. Recently one of the XP machine has gone South so I bought a new one with Windows 7. Now the system fails to download and Debug. It reports 'Fatal error: Fail to initialize........Tools using parallel port are not supported on Windows Vista'! Does that mean the FET430FET is not compatible with Windows 7? I read another post about the USB version problem. I tried the fix but it didn't work for me. Any fix for parallel port device?

Abi

  • Hi abi,

    I don't know exactly why the MSP430-FET430PIF fails under Windows 7, but maybe a have a solution for you!

    Why not using the tool from a virtual machine running Windows XP? I would recommend using VMware Player. Now you're tool should run without problems.

    Rgds
    aBUGSworstnightmare

  • For accessing the parallel port under NT based kernels, a kernel-mode driver is required. Applications don't get direct access to the hardware.

    In addition, under Vista and W7, the kernel mode driver needs to be verified/signed and executed with system rights (under XP, the system will complain while installing, but then loads the driver without problems). Check whether the driver is installed and actually loads. (there might be an error message in the system message log).

    The applicaiton itself does not need administrative rights to run, but if the parallel port access driver hasn't been loaded...

  • The XP mode doesn't help. I am still getting the same error message under the XP virtual machine. May be making a dual boot will help but this is a lot of work because the Window 7 is already there.

  • There was no error reported during installation. I also can see there is a DriverX for MSP-FET430IF Version 1.0 installed together with the IAR Embedded Workbench. But one thingis puzzling me is that why Version 1.0? The very early program version should be 16 Bit and now it should be 64 bits. So the version shouldn't still be 1.0.

  • So you're using WIn7 64 bit? Maybe that's the problem and the driver is only 32 bit?

    It is possible that you didn't get any warning at isntallation time, but still the driver fails to load at system startup. That it has been isntalled sdoes not mean that it is running. And the use will never see a warning about most drivers failing to load. Only the system error log or even the boot log (if any) will show.

    Also, the 'driver for MSP-FET...' you see is not necessarily the only one needed. I was talking about a very low-level hardware access driver. The MSPGC project uses 'giveio' to allow the parallel port FET driver and libraries access to the parallel port hardware.

    And last but not least, there's a chance that the driver, if not adjusted to the OS, migh just 'think' it accesses the real hardware but doesn't as the OS is silently preventing it from access.

  • Yes, I am using Win 7 professional 64bit.

     I am not quite sure about Win 7 so it took me a while to click through to the system log.  You are absolutely right. It shows during the system boot up, it records two errors. The first one is

    \SystemRoot\SysWow64\Drivers\driverx.sys has been blocked from loading due to incompatibility with the system. Please contact you software vendor for a compatible version of the driver.

    The next error right after is

    The DirectX service failed to start due to the following error: The driver has been blocked from loading.

    I have not installed any game into this computer yet so the only DirectX is from IAR.

    I guess I have to ask TI or IAR for a new driverX. Thank you very much Jens-Michael.

  • Unfortunately the parallel port JTAG interface is not supported under Windows7 and Vista

    http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/msp-fet430pif.html

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