Article ID: 051118sab
Last Reviewed: July 6, 2023
The information in this article applies to:
- Pronto for Windows all versions.
Target Audience
This article is aimed at:
- All Users of Pronto for Windows.
Summary
Pronto for Windows is the data download and analysis tool for the Ranger, Power Master and Adaptive Store series of data loggers.
This application note details the computer specification required to run Pronto for Windows.
Operating System support
Pronto for Windows is actively developed and tested regularly on:
Windows 11
Windows 10
Windows 8
Windows 7 (see note below)
Windows Vista (see note below)
See below for older Windows operating systems or other operating systems.
Pronto for Windows and Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 10
Releases 5.64 and later of Pronto for Windows will install and run correctly on Windows Vista and later Windows versions.
Releases 5.63 and 5.62 of Pronto for Windows will run correctly on Windows Vista and later, although the following issues may occur:
1) When Pronto is launched, the following message appears: “Pronto has been denied write access to its profile settings stored in <registry subkey>. This is probably due to restrictions in your access rights on this computer. Pronto cannot continue and will exit”. A solution is presented in this knowledge base article ERRORMSG: Pronto Denied Write Access.
2) When Pronto is launched, the message “Failed to update system registry” appears 3 times for which a solution is presented in this knowledge base article: ERRORMSG: Failed To Update Registry.
3) When PmScreen is launched a message either “The OLE class MBServer is not registered on this computer” or “An operation was attempted on a nonexistent network connection” appears for which a solution is presented in this knowledge base article: ERRORMSG: PMScreen MBServer Not Registered.
Processor requirements
Pronto for Windows will run on any computer with a modern x86 or x64 class processor. Users graphing long multi-channel recordings from a PM7000 will obtain better screen refresh times with a faster processor.
Hard Disk Space
A full Installation of Pronto for Windows with its help files and utilities uses 25 MBytes of disk space.
Each time a Logger is downloaded between 2 and 5 times the size of the download from the Logger is needed to store the uncompressed data. For example a 32 MB download from a PM7000 will consume between 64 and 160 MBytes of disk space.
Memory requirements
As a guide a system should provide reasonable graphing performance with the following:
8 GigaBytes of RAM if running Windows 8, 10 or 11,
4 GigaBytes of RAM if running Windows Vista or Windows 7.
With big download files quite a lot of free memory is required at the point of saving to the project.
Adaptive store data expands up to 5 times the size as it is uncompressed.
Waveform data and general recording data expand about two times.
During the save of each channel the database drivers duplicate each channel as it is saved.
The worst case would be a very large entirely adaptive store recording with only one channel in it. This would expand 5 times during decode then at the point of saving be duplicated so about 10 times the size of the raw data would be required.
Examples:
A 32 MB PM7000 recording with a single adaptive channel could require 340MB.
A 32 MB PM7000 recording with ten adaptive channels could require 176 MB.
A 32 MB PM7000 recording with 16 MB for ten adaptive channels and 16 MB mixed waveform/general recording could require 120 MB.
Communication Ports
A system must have a communication interface available to download a Logger, the table below shows the communication ports present on each product.
| Product | USB | Bluetooth | Ethernet | RS232 | RS485 / RS422 |
| PM7000 | Standard | Standard | Option | – | – |
| PM6000 | USB to Serial Converter | – | – | Standard | Standard |
| PM3000 | USB to Serial Converter | Option | Ethernet to Serial Converter | Standard | – |
| PM2000 | USB to Infra-red Converter | Option | – | RS232 to Infra-red Adapter | – |
| PM1000 | USB to Infra-red Converter | Option | – | RS232 to Infra-red Adapter | – |
| Ranger 2 / 3 /4 | USB to Serial Converter | – | Ethernet to Serial Converter | Standard | – |
A USB to Serial converter can be used on those systems that have no available RS232 port. Please refer to APPNOTE:Using a USB to serial converter with a Ranger Logger for more information.
Legacy operating system support
Pronto is no longer tested or supported on these operating systems. Previous versions of Pronto for Windows have, however, run successfully.
Windows XP with service pack 3
Windows 2000 with service pack 4
Windows NT 4.0 with service pack 6 or later
Windows Millennium Edition
Windows 98 se
Windows 98
Windows 95 (see note below)
Pronto for Windows and Windows 95
Pronto for Windows versions before 5.51 were tested successfully on Windows 95. Later Pronto versions have not been tested but “may” run.
The installation of Windows 95 required the following updates are installed:
DCOM95 update (DC95Inst.exe)
Windows Socket 2 update (w95ws2setup.exe)
Dial up networking 1.3 and Winsock2 year 2000 update (y2kvdhcp.exe)
Year 2000 update (w95y2k.exe)
Dial up networking 1.4 update (dun14-95.exe)
A copy of these updates are present on the installation disk for Pronto for Windows revision 5.41 or later.
ODBC on legacy operating systems
Only applies to Window 95/98 and ME and Windows NT4.0. Modern operating systems include ODBC.
Pronto for Windows uses “Open DataBase Connectivity”. It is recommended that MDAC 2.5 service pack 3 or later is installed.
The installation program for ODBC (mdac_typ.exe) is included on older Pronto installation disks or may be downloaded from the Microsoft web site.
Support on operating systems other than Windows
Pronto is not supported for use on these operating systems. What follows is a summary of customer comments and some in-house testing.
Pronto for Windows and the Apple Macintosh
Using Apple Boot Camp, is known to work, we have customers using Pronto for Windows on Windows 7 on a Mac though Boot Camp.
Using Wine, Untested but results expected to be similar to Wine on Linux.
Using a Windows virtual machine inside Mac OS. Untested but expected to work.
Pronto for Windows and Linux
Using Wine, Pronto mostly works and is completely usable. Tested with Wine 4.0.2 on Ubuntu 18.04. Since the Ubuntu repository version of Wine is outdated, it should be installed using the instructions available on the Wine Download Page.
Pronto must be installed within a 32-bit wine prefix. To setup a a 32-bit wine prefix from a clean install, perform the following commands.
WARNING: This will remove any currently installed wine programs from your computer.
rm -rf ~/.wine
export WINEARCH=win32
wineboot
winetricks corefonts mdac28 jet40 mfc42 wininet
wine <location of Pronto setup.exe>
Pronto should install correctly and create app links for Pronto.exe and all supporting programs. Note that the COM Port mappings within Linux will be different, and can be listed using ls -l ~/.wine/dosdevices. For a USB connection, the port will usually be /dev/ttyUSB0 which usually maps to COM33 in wine.
Known issues:
- Tooltips inside Pronto are blank.
- COM Port search doesn’t work. Simply entering the COM port name is a workaround. E.g Entering “COM33” in the selection box.
Using a Windows virtual machine inside Linux. Untested but expected to work.
Pronto for Windows and React OS
Tested Pronto 5.74 on React OS 0.4.1. Pronto Installs and runs but is unable to do anything useful due to missing ODBC drivers preventing access to Projects.
PmStart and PmScreen work correctly with the Simulators.
No serial connections are possible because the COM port functions are broken in React OS.
Please bear in mind that some of the underlying components required by Pronto may not be licensed for use on React OS.