[Motorola] RE: Motorola RSS and Windows XP home

[Gil Stamper]

I haven't run any RSS on any version of XP.  However I know from sad
experience that the DOS version of the Astro RSS will not run on any Windows
OS newer that Win 98 (not on Win 98 SE either).  Win2000, and NT are no go's
also.  An earlier reply indicating that Win 98 was the last Windows OS to be
built on DOS is correct.  After that Microsoft wrote a DOS emulator that
works sometimes but not always.  Even with Win98, newer (faster) computers
sometimes caused trouble with the DOS based version of RSS because some of
the communications timers in RSS were based on older CPU's that ran at
slower speeds.  The problem was timeout errors indicating that
communications with the radio failed.

Windows based RSS is currently available for the Astro Spectra group of hand
helds and mobiles, and for the Saber group of hand helds.  That RSS will run
on 2000, and NT, as well as Win98 SE, so it will probably run on WinXP
although I haven't personally done it.  Conversation with Motorola engineers
indicate that there are no plans to convert some other RSS programs to
Windows version (such as for the Quantar base station/repeater.)  I don't
have any knowledge about any other older radio groups.

I have built up a long term relationship with a couple of Motorola Customer
Assurance engineers who haven't steered me wrong yet.  They have always
advised running the DOS based version of RSS in a pure DOS environment (not
a DOS windows under Win98, or Win95, and not the "DOS Mode" that shows up
when the Win 98 shutdown menu is used, either.)  Although I haven't had any
trouble running DOS based RSS in a Win 98 box, they always advised against
it.  When the systems I support migrated their programming computer to
Windows 98SE, I had to set up a DOS partition on the hard drive and loaded
PCDOS Version 7.  Access is via a dual boot option installed with the
partitioning program.  In that partition I've loaded DOS RSS for Astro
portable and mobile, along with the DOS RSS for the Quantar repeater.

The irony is that the Windows version of RSS won't run on Windows 95, and is
very problematical on Windows 98.  Motorola flatly will not support the
Windows RSS if you tell them you are using the Win95 OS.

As someone else said, your "mileage may vary"
Good luck

Gil Stamper