The original "Install AHP new computer" post is mow 7 years old (June 7 2005). So I am going to refresh it with my own experience.
For years I had an old PC running MSDOS and some software that sends out X-10 signals from a COM: port to a PowerLinc adapter, to control Appliance modules that power various systems.
In early 2013 I decided to upgrade, and reacquainted myself with my two large file boxes of X-10 modules and controllers. I logged into X-10.com to see what was new. I had a leftover Dell D500 laptop to apply to the problem, and settled on ActiveHomePro for the control software. I ordered it in late Jan 2013 and waited. After several weeks I called and was told the CM15A device was back ordered, so i waited some more.
Finally it arrived and I installed the software, carefully retaining the software modules for installation (in case I needed to reinstall). This was my first mistake because it was much later (November 2013 that I discovered that X-10 had this EVER SO CLEVER installer that wasn't really the installer but an anti-software-piracy scheme that only streams the actual installer code to the customer's computer and doesn't store that code locally. I have 50 years of software development under my belt so I understand the need to discourage piracy.
It may have been EVER SO CLEVER for keeping customers from giving out the AHP to others, but not for assuring that X-10 would be around if legitimate customers had hardware or other technical problems and needed to reinstall. From the looks of the number of customers who are asking how to do that it there are quite a few of us.
I had to weather another problem. The AHP and the attache CM15A would not operate any X-10 modules, and I had several phone conversations with X-19 support before they agreed with me if the other manual X-10 controllers could operate the same switch modules and the CM15A couldn't, they would replace it. The replacement worked and I installed the necessary files in AGP to allow me to render several mechanical light and appliance timers obsolete.
My particular reason for needing to reinstall is that a very nice 160GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue hard drive that I installed in that Dell D500 gave out sometime after X-10.com company when out of business. I didn't notice that until November 2013, at which point i replaced the D500 with another computer and attempted to do the AHP reinstall which, of course, failed. And then the holidays came around and then a scheduled Winter vacation.
Now I'm back and attempted to email X-10.com support and got Server not found, Then I googled "What happened to x-10.com" and found the saga of the bankruptcy. Then I got out the D500 and tried to recover files from the dead WD drive. It turns out its FUBAR. Not even Steve Gibson's Spinrite6 my old standby disk rejuvenator could do anything with it, reporting
"You should NOT PROCEED to use SpinRite on this drive until you have verified and corrected the disparity between this drive and the BIOS's or BIOS extension's understanding of the drive size."
A simple sector copy found numerous sequences of unreadable sectors, so I resorted to mounting the WD drive on a USB adapter and locating and copying the various AHP code and other drives over to the newer and working Windows computer. My thinking is that if the Program files for AHP and the various data files are intact I should be able to reconstruct a working version.
But it doesn't work, and before I put too much more time in this line of thinking, I now want to rule out the possibility that the anti-piracy scheme of AHP also requires that the X-10 server has to be online to even run the AHP software. If anyone knows the answer to that possibility I would like to hear it.
If a working Windows PC with lawfully installed AHP software truly has all the necessary software and data modules in their proper places, I would to hear from someone who has a working Windows computer with AHP installed and can post in this thread an exhaustive list of those software and data modules and their file paths. That would allow me to inventory the modules that I have and determine what's missing, if any.
I think that such an exhaustive list of what constitutes a complete AHP would be a valuable reference for all AHP owners, not only those whose systems are in distress.
In the meantime I will post my own inventory of files I have from the dead D500 drive.
Thanks,
Bob
