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Some things to be aware of -
installing and updating our M30x devices
| 1.) |
Each manufacturer of a USB device has a unique numeric code that is encoded into their device. When the device
is connected to the PC, that numeric code is the first thing that Windows will look for. Once it finds the code,
it will search all of it's resources ( number one resource is the registry ) to
determine if the device has ever been installed. If a device with the same manufaturer's numeric code has been installed
on the same port that the current device is connected to, Windows will load the driver into memory and you will be
ready to start using the device. If any of our USB devices have been connected to the PC except on a different port
than you are currently connected to ( and the installation process for that device completed successfully )
Windows will let you know that it has found a suitable driver for the device and whether or not you want it to use
the existing driver. If you answer no, it will then prompt you for a location where it can
search for the correct driver. If you answer yes, it will use some of the information it already
has stored in the registry to install the new device, and may still ask you for a location of the driver.
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| 2.) |
During the installation process, whenever Windows asks you for the location of a driver for it to install,
it is actually asking for the location of a file with the .inf extension which will contain
information about the name of the device driver it should install for the device
as well as any other files ( such as our LL_USB.INI ) that should also be installed
with the device driver. The name of our information file is LL_USB2k.inf for
Win2k/XP/NT, and LL_USB.inf for Win98/ME installation. The information within the
.inf tells Windows that it needs to copy our device driver LL_USB2k.sys (
for Win2k/XP/NT ) or LL_USB.sys ( for Win98/ME ) to
the Windows system/drivers folder, and that it needs to copy a configuration file LL_USB.ini
( used by our DLL ) into the Windows directory. All three of those files should be together
on the floppy diskette being used for the installation to prevent installation errors. Although our DLL,
LL_USB2k.dll ( for Win2k/XP/NT ) or LL_USB.dll ( for
Win98/ME ) should be kept on the floppy diskette that is used for installaion, there is no reference
made to it in our information file, so the Windows installer will never look for it - it's up to you to copy it into
your application directory wherever that may end up being.
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| 3.) |
After a successful installation of one or more of our M30x devices, here are some things
that may be of interest.
| A.) |
When any one of our M30x devices has it's cable connected to the PC, the device driver will load into memory.
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| B.) |
When all of our M30x devices have their USB cable disconnected the device driver will unload from memory.
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| C.) |
You can not use the device manager to uninstall our M30x device unless you have the cable
connected between the device and the PC, since the device manager will not uninstall a device driver unless it
sees that it is loaded into memory.
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| C.) |
If the Windows device manager is used to uninstall our M30x device, all traces of the device
are not removed, but rather it is just marked as being removed, and the device driver is unloaded from memory. If
you connect the device after having uninstalled it, you will not go through the same installation process that you
ent through the first time you installed it, but will still have to go through an installation process. See the
installation sections of this document for your version of windows for further information.
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| 4.) |
Although our device driver is in the Window's system32/drivers folder and our DLL is in your
application folder, you may not be able to see them, using the Window's explorer ( file manager ) unless
you have the option to show system files selected in the Windows explorer. Enabling the option to show system files
requires a process that varies from one version of windows to another and can usually be understood by using the
Windows HELP that is available from the start menu. Likewise, you may have to enable
the ablility to show file extensions for known file types in order to know which type of file you are looking at - for
example a .dll, .cfg, .ini, etc, might all have the same name if the extension is not visible.
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| 5.) |
During the installation process, if you are advised that our driver is not signed ignore the message
and proceed with the installation process.
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| 6.) |
There should never be a reason to use the Windows device manager to uninstall our M30x devices unless you
are using an older PC with Win98, and have mistakenly allowed the operating system to install it's own generic
USB driver for our device. See the installation notes above for Win98/ME to find out more about this.
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| 7.) |
After you've successfully completed the initial installation of one of our M30x devices, and you want to install the
newest version of our driver, follow the notes below.
| A.) |
If you don't already have the most recent driver, it can be downloaded from our website by following the links
from the main page for either the Model301 or Model302. Be sure to download the correct version of the driver, for
your version of windows - LL_USB2k.sys for Win2k/XP/NT, and LL_USB.sys for Win98/ME.
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| B.) |
Disconnect any of the M30x devices you may currently have connected which will cause the current driver to unload
out of memory.
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| C.) |
Copy the new driver over the old driver in the Windows system32/drivers folder. If when copying
the new over the old, you should get a message from Windows confirming that you want to replace the old file with
the new ( unless you've explicitly disabled that feature for it to ask first ) for which
you should always answer yes. Also remember, as mentioned elswhere in this documentation, that you may
not be able to see the device driver, or even the system32/drivers folder unless you have the
option enabled in Windows explorer to not hide system files.
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| C.) |
Reconnect your M30x devices and the new driver will load into memory and be ready to use.
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| 8.) |
A USB device is considered to be a Plug-n-Play device.
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