| November 26th 2011 |
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More answers to frequently asked questions. There is more information
about compatibility with add-on cards if your motherboard does not have a parallel port.
Read all about it here.
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| August 26th 2011 |
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Ok. Forget everything I said before about the 64 bit driver. The unthinkable has happened. I actually
acquired a code-signing certificate!
I found out that it is possible to get a code-signing certificate on personal title, as
opposed to one issued to a company. So that is what I did. I am extremely happy to announce that as of
now you can obtain a signed driver that you can officially run on the 64 bit version of Windows 7.
Oh, and it also runs on Vista 64 bit but I suppose not many of you are using that.
So if you have been wanting to make the move to 64 bit but were unwilling to go through
the hassle of running in Test mode: this is your chance! Go to the
order page and obtain your copy
of the driver. Take your MIDI setup to the next level!
Also there is a demo version available that you can try before ordering. The demo version
is also fully signed and can be installed on any 64 bit version of Windows. It has certain
limitations built in but the core code is identical to the full version. If the demo works on
your system, the full version will also work. Download the demo
here.
For those of you that already purchased the unsigned version of the 64 bit driver: you
will receive an email shortly with an offer to have it replaced with the signed version
free of charge.
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| November 29th 2010 |
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After over three years of silence I am happy to announce the arrival of a 64 bit version of
the driver. The target platform for this driver is Windows XP 64 bit. This needs some explanation. Why Windows XP
when it is no longer supported by Microsoft? The short story is that it is possible to install the driver on
Windows Vista 64 bit and Windows 7 64 bit, but this will require some actions on your side. Officially I will and cannot support
those operating systems.
Why these complications? Can't you make it easy for us for a change? Yeah yeah, I know. It's not nice. The root
cause of this inconvenience lies in the fact that Microsoft has tightened its driver signing policy. All 64 bit operating systems,
starting from Windows Vista, will no longer load unsigned drivers. For you, the end-user, there is no choice. You cannot set your
own rules. Microsoft has declared that it will be so and you have no say in this.
Effectively this makes it next to impossible for an independent developer like myself to release drivers to the
public. In order to be able to sign drivers I will need a certificate from a Microsoft approved Certificate Authority.
One example of such a Certificate Authority would be Verisign. A certificate will cost around 500 US dollar per year. If one
wants to apply for a certificate, this can only done be under the name of a registered company. This requires registering
a company name, which I cannot do because the contract I have with my current employer specifically states that I am not
allowed to do so. So exit signing drivers with my own certificate. The investment is impossible to justify.
So that's it? There's no way out? Well, there is a way out, but it's not a particularly nice one. Since developers
need to test their drivers too there is a tiny hole in the fence. It is possible to run Windows in so called test mode.
In this mode the signatures of drivers will not be verified when the driver is loaded. This means that a driver can be
signed with any certificate, even if the certificate is not signed by some authority. When the operating system is running
in this mode, it will show the text 'Test Mode' overlaying the desktop in the lower right corner. Other than this there is really
no difference in terms of performance or functionality. The only important side-effect of running in test mode is that
the security of your system is weakened. The signing policy applies to all the drivers in your system so also malicious drivers
have a change of sneaking into your system. This is a risk you have to evaluate for yourself. Therefore I cannot officially
support operating systems that enforce this strict driver signing policy.
If you decide that the benefit of using the driver on Windows 7 outweighs the disadvantage of running in test mode, there
exists a tool that makes the setup of such a system very smooth and simple. It is called Driver Signature
Enforcement Overrider and can be found with a simple search on the Internet. This tool itself is perfectly
legal. It doesn't do anything that is forbidden. The only catch is that you use it at your own risk. The best way to
use the tool is applying it to the driver file before installation. The driver file can be found in the zip package you
download after ordering the driver.
Apart from all the hassle, there are some additional benefits if you decide to step over to the 64 bit side. During
the development of the 64 bit driver I fixed some issues which ensure that this version of the driver is the most stable
released. Also I finally gave in to the many requests to create a tool to configure the 8 Port MIDI matrix. As you know the
original configuration tool had some issues which made it a nuisance to work with. Now I made a brand new version of it and
I must say I'm quite pleased with the result. You can find a screenshot of this new tool on the order page here.
All in all I wished it were simpler but unfortunately it is not. I am not calling the shots so please don't blame me. I
have been hesitant to release the driver at all because of these obstacles. But in the end I figured I could make at least
some people happy and that would make the effort worth while.
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| February 6th 2007 |
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There is a new driver update available. This does not change the driver files themselves, the
driver version remains 2.14, but updates the driver configuration tool. It adds an option to tweak
the parallel port communication speed. In some cases this might help to solve hardware incompatibility
problems.
The driver update patch has version number 2.14b. This is to illustrate that the driver
version is still 2.14. If you have purchased the driver after november 2006 you already have
the new configuration tool and there is no need to download this patch.
The new driver setting is called 'latency'. The default value is 1 but you can increase it to 999 maximum.
It is advisable not to set it too high. I recommend not to set it any higher than about 32. If you have no
problems with the reliability of the parallel port communication than just leave the latency at it's
default value.
You can find more information in the new 'Read Me' file that comes with the update. You can download
the update here (only for registered users).
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| November 8th 2006 |
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My credo is you have got to come up with something new at least once
a year. Therefore it is time for a brand new version of the good old driver.
It fixes a small, yet potentially painful problem.
Read more about it and download it
here (only for registered users).
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| November 10th 2005 |
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Within a day after releasing version 2.11, I was contaced by a customer who
told me he had still some problems with his Mackie Control Universal, even with the
new version 2.11. I was fortunate enough to be able to try this out myself and I came
to the conclusion that there was indeed still a problem.
Of course I felt obliged to fix this as soon as possible so that is
why there is now a version 2.12. I will not make the same mistake by starting
to cheer too soon, but silently I am very positive that all issues have now been
resolved.
Please convince yourself and download the new patch
here (only for registered users).
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| November 9th 2005 |
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The latest and the greatest. Download
the patch now (only for registered users).
This version finally solves all remaining system exclusive issues. If you
had problems with previous versions, this update is for you.
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| Aug 17th 2005 |
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More answers to the age old questions.
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| July 3rd 2004 |
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The best and most stable version of the driver is out now. You are advised to
update to this version. Download the patch now (only for registered users).
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| March 17th 2004 |
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A new bugfix release is out. Some users reported
strange behaviour of the driver, sometimes leading to serious crashes (BSOD). Thanks
to Claude Voit I was able to find the cause of these problems. It appeared that system
exclusive messages of certain sizes would lead to data loss and memory corruption. Because
of the relatively rare occurence of this problem it was missed in the test phase.
On top of this I improved the handling of so-called system realtime messages and reduced
the memory usage of the driver considerably.
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| January 06th 2004 |
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Sometimes you want to do things too fast. The update I released a little more
than a week ago appears to have an annoying problem. You may have encountered it if you
have a keyboard that emits something that is called 'active sensing'. The updated driver
does not handle active sensing well. It causes lost data.
Fortunately it did not take me long to fix, only this time I wanted to test it thoroughly
before releasing it. So here is the new version 2.6 of the 8 Port SE DirectMusic driver. It
passed my stress test flawlessly. Grab the update patch here.
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| December 27th 2003 |
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There is a new version of the DirectMusic driver out. Registered users
can download a free update patch here.
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| October 18th 2003 |
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I added an installer program to the demo driver, making it a lot easier to install (and
uninstall). I am removing part of the installation manual from the web-site. It's not needed anymore.
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| October 10th 2003 |
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I discovered a fairly serious bug in the demo driver when running on Windows
XP. If you open an input when the driver is active, the system will freeze
when it receives input after the time-limit has passed.
As I do my development on Windows 2000 and the bug does not occur on that OS, it
managed to escape my attention all this time. I have put a new version of the demo up that
fixes the problem.
This bug applies only to the demo driver and happens only on Windows XP. The full version
drivers don't suffer from it.
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| September 30th 2003 |
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It has been announced in this same place but finally it is there.
The 8 Port SE DirectMusic Driver was released today. Registered users of the 8 Port
SE WDM Driver received an email notifying them of the special upgrade offerings. If you are
a registered user of the WDM driver and you did not receive the mailing, please contact me and
I will send it to you.
The DirectMusic driver will replace the WDM driver. The WDM driver will from now
on only be available by special request. If for some reason you prefer the WDM driver to the
DirectMusic driver you will still be able to order the WDM driver.
The new DirectMusic driver is fully backwards compatible with the WDM driver. No functionality
is lost, only new features are added. Technically speaking the DirectMusic driver is even still
a WDM driver. To avoid confusion and to keep the old and the new driver apart I use these
names to refer to them.
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