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Old 07-22-2009, 09:19 AM   #5
Ted Craven
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 9,251
Ernie,

The short answer to these problems is (and the long answer follows below): install V0.98.7 (no need to uninstall the previous version first). To resolve the ZIP routines problem, look in your \windows\system32 folder for a file named XceedZip.dll. Presuming that you find such a file, please rename it to something else (e.g. XceepZip.dl_). This is the same advice I gave recently in the ZIP routines problem Topic in the RDSS Bugs Forum: http://paceandcap.com/forums/showpos...72&postcount=6 and that seemed to work (and has also worked for 2 others who have written to me).

You should now be able to load and run RDSS on an ongoing basis.

Here's the longer answer: your problems, I think, have arisen due to an unfortunate series of events (and certainly not your fault). First you could not access all the races in yesterday's FE card, possibly due to the circumstances described in my previous post. You say you removed version 0.98.6, but it is possible when you did that that you also removed your database file (which is why you cannot find FE 07/21), perhaps responding to the Uninstaller's query whether to also remove the file \rdss\data\data.db (the RDSS database). It was for this reason, that I changed the behaviour of the installer starting with V 0.98.7 to NEVER remove the RDSS database, ever, during uninstall or re-install (see the release notes to V0.98.7: http://www.sartinmethodology.com/rds...ase_notes_0987). If you do not have a backup copy of your database file, and if you need to recreate your lost database from downloaded data files which you probably still have, let me know and I will dig up the post which describes a way to reload from old data files (sadly, your paceline selections will be lost).

Ernie, FYI, you can always download the same card from TrackMaster on the same calendar day as many times as you like and pay only once. If you need it, just email me and I can supply you with that missing card.


For those who really want to know the gory details about the ZIP problem, here goes (otherwise, please skip the following):

As mentioned in the ZIP Bug Topic, the problem RDSS runs into sometimes is that other programs can also make use of the same ZIP library which I license for RDSS. When they are installed into Windows they (or at least one, not sure which) install the ZIP library (XceedZip.dll) in the \windows\system32 folder and register it with Windows, just like thousands of other libraries and routines used by Windows itself and by many other apps. Trouble is, they sometimes install an older version (or a version with a different license key) to that ZIP library which then causes RDSS' previously working ZIP library to stop working.

After discovering what the intermittent ZIP problem has been for the past few years, in V0.98.7 I attempted to solve it finally by always re-registering RDSS' own ZIP library every time it loads up, but this turns out to be only half-useful. If there is another, different, ZIP library file in \windows\system32 (where Windows apaprently looks first to load ActiveX libraries), Windows will load from there before it loads from RDSS!

Thus the solution: rename or delete any other XceedZip.dll ZIP libraries from \windows\system32 and RDSS' version will always load properly (Note: you may have to load RDSS twice to get the proper ZIP library finally installed).

I am working on another RDSS Update for later this week (to deliver some kind of export to Excel for factor modeling), and I will try to come up with a permanent solution to this ZIP business (i.e. more permanent than the previous permanent solution ).

Again (and again), sorry for the confusion caused by this this ZIP thing, and Ernie, I hope you can get back in business today with this advice.

Please let me know.

Ted
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