Data Acquisition (DAQ) and Control from Microstar Laboratories

Knowledge Base: Applications

Q10120 DAPview program fails on 64-bit system

Tags: Help, Windows, 64-bit, 16-bit, applications, legacy, DAPview for Windows

Applies to: All 64-bit versions of Windows

After upgrading my system to use a new 64-bit version of Windows, Windows refuses to run DAPview, displaying a message dialog "The version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you're running." What can I do?

You will need to find an alternative to the DAPview for Windows software. That software went obsolete at the time when Windows XP was first released. The 32-bit versions of the Windows system worked with processor hardware that supported 16-bit legacy applications, so 16-bit applications continued to run in a "compatibility mode" under 32-bit versions of Windows.

The 64-bit versions of Windows run on 64-bit hardware that has a 32-bit compatibility mode, but not a 16-bit compatibility mode. Therefore the 64-bit Windows systems have no way to run 16-bit applications. Also, the DAPview for Windows program uses system features that 64-bit Windows tools no longer support, so rewriting the DAPview software to work in a 64-bit environment is a difficult challenge, and is not going to happen.

The best alternative is to convert applications that previously used the DAPview for Windows software, to make the applications run with the DAP Development Studio (DAPstudio) software. DAPstudio offers mostly advantages over DAPview, though it has its own unique limitations. The graphics are generally faster and better than DAPview, but limited in some ways. DAPstudio can export its configuration as a .dap text script for other applications to use, but unfortunately, it cannot import these text scripts back to build a DAPstudio application. Applications from DAPview must be mostly reentered manually, using the DAPstudio windows and dialogs. Text editing is still used for configuring the embedded processing tasks, and DAPstudio provides help suggestions for any commands that it knows about. DAPstudio has some much improved features, such as the ability to operate multiple DAP boards, log data directly to disk without application software intervention, and monitor DAP buffer storage capacity automatically.

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See also:

* Check the DAP Development Studio Web page for more information about DAPstudio software.