Upgraded to W11 PC / Startwatch and Virtual VP

[Jim_AFCB]

Hi all,

I thought I would post this as it may be of interest/help to others.

Reading other posts, I know others are a bit concerned as to how the constituent parts would run on newer machines, particularly Startwatch and Virtual VP, and being able to re-register the latter, given that they are now abandonware so far as I can tell.

My weather station has been running on an older W8 laptop for getting on for 10 years.
It runs Startwatch, Virtual Vp, with Cumulus V1, Weatherlink and Graphweather.

The laptop battery (itself a replacement for a battery that failed about 4-5 years back) failed a couple of years ago - and I started to get security alerts a couple of weeks ago. As W8 is no longer being supported (and it would not run Cumulus MX anyway), I decided to bite the bullet and get a new W11 laptop to migrate the weather station on to.

I thought I may have issues with compatibility/W11 security measures, and so it proved! The various hurdles thrown up as a result took me a whole day to sort out.
I copied all the files over and started checking that each individual part worked before I attempted to plug in the VP2 and migrate operations over.

The first issue I had was installing anything not from the Microsoft store. The version of W11 shipped was in "s-mode" which i had to disable.
The weather-related stuff did all work - Startwatch and VirtualVP had to be run as administrator for the registrations to "stick" - I did not have to install them, I just ran them from the folder I copied them across from the "Public" area rather from C:/Program Files. Only Weatherlink needed to be installed, as this includes the Vantage Pro drivers.

Anyway, this morning I connected the VP2 and ran up the various parts and all ran seamlessly. The only issue I now have is getting the PC to log back into the right user account automatically after a reboot, but that's not urgent (hopefully). The old W8 PC would lock up after much more than a day's use, so I gave it an auto-reboot at 0300 every morning. Hopefully that won't be necessary on the new machine.

There is one thing I will address - Startwatch and Virtual PC.

As things stand, Startwatch can still be downloaded and installed, and is freeware; the serial and registration code are in the public domain.

Virtual VP is a different matter; I don't think it can be downloaded anywhere, and even if it was, there is no way to register it after the free time runs out as softwx site is dead.

So, given its apparent abandonware status, I am proposing that I can make my copy available, together with registration code. I don't have the original install file, but it can be run from the existing install folder (it's just under 3 mb) which can be zipped up and posted on here.

I will give it a few days for any comments or reasons why I shouldn't post it.

I hope my experiences will be useful to others contemplating a similar step.

[HansR]

Shouldn't this be posted under Cumulus1 @freddie?

[Jim_AFCB]

I wasn't sure where to post this, to be honest. As it is hardware specific, i felt the most appropriate place to put it is here, however if a n admin wants to move it, that's fine

[PaulMy]

Hi,
I think posting here is fine as it works the same with CMX and WLPC.

I purchased Virtual VP and original StartWatch in 2009. I haven't used VirtualVP for years as I found it not very reliable with my newer system. I still use StartWatch. I likely have the download files somewhere on my original W8 box.

I also have the public key and serial number for VVP that Steve H posted January 2015.
I see no reason not to make your copy available with registration code or the public information posted by Steve H.

Enjoy,
Paul