Best windows version for Alltrax software

[chuckinnc]

I need to download Alltrax software to a laptop so I can troubleshoot my Alltrax controller. I have a several laptops, XP, Win 7 & win 10, which version of windows would easier for a novice to use?

[LukeL]

I’ve used it under windows Vista, 7, 8.1 and 10 with no issues. I work on laptops so I have tons of them around.

I’d go for Windows 10 personally. It’s the fastest at getting the device drivers when a USB device is plugged in. XP is long unsupported and Windows 7 only has a few months left.

[nickdalzell1]

for XCTs, the manual they include is giving what appears to be screenshots from Windows Vista. Whatever version that manual links to will install to Windows 10 in our shop, but it won't communicate or find the controller once plugged in. However, our ancient Windows XP machine it works fine. Not sure why.

I have the same lack of luck via Windows 10 with Fairplay Kinitek software and PC PAK software for Sevcon controllers as well. It installs, but refuses to find any connection to the controller. Tried a virtual machine in either case with no luck.

[delete1616]

I have Windows 10 and it seems to work fine for me 👍

[nickdalzell1]

Maybe the manuals i get have the wrong link? I should check the website next time. Still, the software for Bad Boy and Fairplay has been deprecated.

[LukeL]

Looks like Windows 7 in the manual screenshots. I have it on one of my Surfaces running Windows 10. Works great for portable programming.

[nickdalzell1]

Vista or 7 either way the UI on those doesn't differ too much aside the start menu. I got a PC at home running 7 i got for free (guy was trashing it)

I don't even use the Windows 10 work laptop anymore, kinda adjusted to life without it since it refuses to communicate to the controllers, and the customers are happy a XCT runs 19 MPH stock without modification, unlike the barely 13 MPH they got before they EOL'd their old controller.

Real fun is getting Win10 to talk to the Palm Pilot that Yamaha first-generation Drives use to program them. That was a migraine and a half but i did succeed (of course that PC had its SSD go bad shortly after and i'm NOT doing that again)

[LukeL]

A bad SSD is a rare thing. Now too bad there’s no Mac version of the toolkit.

[nickdalzell1]

It was a cheap laptop (at the time i wasn't going to pay $900+ for a Surface device that will likely get busted in the rough conditions of the hick shop i work out of) and the 32GB solid state drive couldn't handle all the tons of background processes of Windows 10 much less updates, disk cache, etc that an SSD wasn't designed to handle--tons of rewrite cycles kills 'em. I got a couple of spares but they sit unused in their boxes--for if/when i need them. I sort of got into an anti-consumerist mindset lately. Which makes me sick that EZGO has gone to such a disposable route with their chargers, and then Yamaha follows it, now Club Car has gone the same route as the QE and i really hate it.

[nickdalzell1]

My current work laptop is a Dell Latitude E6430 (complete with a cellular modem--$49 secondhand) and it runs Windows 7 (don't give me the futurist rhetoric about being hacked--this system stays offline and I like 7's UI better than whatever 10 and 11 use. I don't like flat UI) and it runs fine with the Alltrax and even Kvaser software for the Yamahas. Mostly it's used for the many service manual PDFs and MS Paint 'masterpieces' (my diagrams/schematics I have to create when fixing some Chinesium cart should I succeed).

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. My shop is a testament to the 1960s with a ton of vintage drills, wrenches, sawtooth logo Craftsman sets, even vintage fans and a tube radio. The laptop is the most modern part of it, and it's from 2013. I have a policy in that building--no smart chargers. I won't let a PowerWise QE, ERIC, Summit II, or JW2 pile of crap in that shop. If I charge anything there, it's with vintage timer-equipped ferro-resonant equipment.

That old stuff just works. Is repairable.