System Requirements and Installation

System Requirements and Installation
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System Requirements

All DHD applications are programmed for and tested on Microsoft Windows XP. Therefore, you should use this operating system to run the programs.

	Important
	If you want to run DHD applications on other versions of the Windows operating system, you can do so at your own risk. In many cases, it will work. Nevertheless, this is not recommended by DHD! Tests and troubleshooting are carried out on Windows XP only, therefore, solving problems with DHD applications on other versions of Windows does not have any priority!

The DHD Communication Server is installed automatically when starting a DHD application for the first time. This software (e.g. Toolbox4) extracts the program file of the DHDCS and saves it to the hard disk of your PC. To make this work, your current Windows user account must have the permission to write in the directory containing the DHD application! If this is the case, the DHDCS file is created in this directory.

If the user has no write permission in this directory, the program file for the DHDCS is created in the users temporary directory.

	Important
If your user account has no write permission on the Windows system at all, the DHD Communication Server can neither be extracted nor started! During the first start-up of the DHDCS the software also tries to insert data into the Windows Registry. This can only be successful if your Windows user account has the appropriate permissions! Therefore, sort out the writing permissions of your Windows user account carefully with your system administrator. Otherwise, problems can occur when installing, updating and operating DHD applications. We recommend to start a DHD application for the first time with administrator permissions! But you also have to make sure that the directory for the DHDCS can be written into by normal users.

Important

If your user account has no write permission on the Windows system at all, the DHD Communication Server can neither be extracted nor started! During the first start-up of the DHDCS the software also tries to insert data into the Windows Registry. This can only be successful if your Windows user account has the appropriate permissions!

Therefore, sort out the writing permissions of your Windows user account carefully with your system administrator. Otherwise, problems can occur when installing, updating and operating DHD applications. We recommend to start a DHD application for the first time with administrator permissions! But you also have to make sure that the directory for the DHDCS can be written into by normal users.

In order to make the DHDCS work correctly for all DHD applications, some entries have to be written into the Windows Registry. If your user account is not authorized to do that, the DHDCS can not be started! In both cases, an error message is displayed.

Figure 3: Error message of the DHDCS that appears if the user account has no sufficient writing permissions.

In these cases, you can use the running DHD application, but to set up a connection to DSP frames is impossible.

Installing and updating the DHDCS

You do not have to install the DHD Communication Server manually. This software is shipped with the DHD application and “installs itself”. It works like this:

At start-up of a DHD application, the program looks for a DHDCS program file already available on the PC. If there is no such file or only an older version, the DHD application extracts the up-to-date DHDCS program and writes it in its own file on the hard disk. Thus, any existing older DHDCS program file is replaced. Problems can only occur if your Windows account does not have the appropriate writing permissions or if a version of the DHDCS is already running. (Please find more detailed information in the following section.)

The DHDCS starts up as follows:

The DHD application compares the version of the integrated DHDCS with the ones available on the system.
If the version on the system is up-to-date, it is started.
If the integrated version is more up-to-date, it is extracted and replaces the version registered on the system. Then, the new version is started.

If the DHDCS update was successful, the following message is displayed:

Figure 4: This message tells you that the DHD Communication Server was updated successfully.

Like all other DHD applications, also the DHD Communication Server is under constant development. Updates of DHD applications often require updates of the DHDCS shipped with the application. This means that the program file of recent DHD application also contains an updated DHDCS version.

If you want to know which DHDCS version is active on your PC, carry out the following steps:

Make sure the DHDCS is active. To do this, start any one of the DHD applications, e.g. Toolbox4. You can identify an active DHDCS when the small orange DHD logo is displayed in the icon tray of the Windows task bar.
Double click on this logo. The DHDCS application window opens. Alternatively, you can also right-click on the icon and use the context menu. Use the Open command to open the window.
Now select the About command from the help menu?.
The following information window opens. Under Info you find the version and the date of creation of the DHDCS currently active. Please always quote these two if you have questions to the DHD support.
Figure 5: The information window of the DHD Communication Server.

	Important
There is a source of error when updating the DHDCS: If one DHD application is running already (e.g.Toolbox4) and you start another one (e.g. Route) which wants to update the DHDCS, this will not be successful, because the program file of an active program can not be deleted. So if Toolbox4 is active already, the DHDCS runs in the background and its program file is open. So Route can not update the DHDCS. In this case, an error dialog is displayed asking you to first quit all DHD applications and the restart the software with the new DHDCS. If you do as requested, the DHDCS is updated correctly.

Important

There is a source of error when updating the DHDCS: If one DHD application is running already (e.g.Toolbox4) and you start another one (e.g. Route) which wants to update the DHDCS, this will not be successful, because the program file of an active program can not be deleted. So if Toolbox4 is active already, the DHDCS runs in the background and its program file is open. So Route can not update the DHDCS.

In this case, an error dialog is displayed asking you to first quit all DHD applications and the restart the software with the new DHDCS. If you do as requested, the DHDCS is updated correctly.

Figure 6: Error message if a DHD Communication Server is already running and can not be updated.

Though the DHD application starts after clicking OK in the error message, but it can not set up a connection to the RM4200D Devices in the network.

All versions of the DHD Communication Server are programmed in a way that also older versions of DHD applications work with the new DHDCS. Therefore, you can use older versions of DHD applications even if a newer version of the DHDCS is installed on your PC.

	Note
	You can not run older versions of DHD applications that do not work with the DHDCS yet and newer programs with DHDCS at the same time! As soon as an older application is started, it reserves the UDP data stream so the DHDCS has no access. It is the same the other way round: If the DHDCS is running, it uses the UDP data stream exclusively. Other applications have no access any more.