Upgrading to MIL-Lite 9

More about the MIL-Lite upgrade, I have had several problems. I should start by mentioning that we require our applications to work on MIL-versions back to 6, in order to be able to support the excisting customer base:

– Matrox have strengthen the typing on all MxxxInquire functions. Probably a good idea, but it means that all previous uses of the functions, for example MBufInquire is not supported anymore and have to be upgraded. Since we are dealing with pointers here, pointers to stuff of different lengths, this is not an easy upgrade. My solution was to use #if M_MIL_CURRENT_INT_VERSION >= 0x0900 in those places where I was unsure about whether further use of the pointers required a specific width.

– I am unable to retrieve previous hanlder ptr and user handler ptr:
MappInquire(M_CURRENT_ERROR_HANDLER_PTR,&m_HandlerPtr);
The type of the third parameter is not supported anymore (MAPPHOOKFCTPTR)

– The most serious problem is that Matrox has ceased support for the Mvga functions. I used them for getting a pointer to a DIB structure, in order to draw the dib to a printer device context. I canot find a real alternative to these functions

– And, not related to code, I am not able to debug the application as I constantly get an error message about missing license. However I have a Matrox Meteor 1394 card installed, with a Sony 1394b camera. I am not sure why this does not work – perhaps the Meteor is not supported in version 9, or there is still problems with 1394b speeds. Anyway I will order a USB license key.

– The Matrox developer forum is a closed one. Whenever I try to enter, typically every sixth month, I am not able to log on. Of course I have a valid support agreement and all that, but I do not remember my username or my password. I do remember the email address I am registered with, but it seems not to be enough. So I am not able to see any posts. I don’t understand why the access needs to be that restricted.

So at the moment, I am not able to get Mil-Lite 9 to work on Vista – or any version of MIL to work on Vista, I am not able to get help through the forums, and I wonder whether I rather should switch to another vendor!

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Error 2738: Could not access VBScript run time for custom action

Finally, Matrox has released version 9.0 of their MIL-Lite imaging library. Finally – because it is the first version with Vista support, and as most people know, Microsoft has ended selling Windows XP. I have got a hand of a beta version and installed it today. Up to now I have had to use a second computer with Windows XP to debug and run the applications. More on that at another time.

Anyway, as the application also use DAC boards from Computerboards (now Measurement Computing), I needed to instasll their Vista-compatible InstaCal driver too. Their drivers always work ok, so I was surprised when the installation repeatedly stopped with the error “Error 2738: Could not access VBScript run time for custom action”. After searching the Measurement Computing forums , I went to google and it turned out that this error stems from vbscript.dll not being registered. How on earth that windows component did get unregistered I do not know, but this procedure fixed the problem:
1. Run Command Prompt as administrator
1.1 Start Menu -> All Programs -> Accessories
1.2 Right click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator
2. Type cd c:\windows\system32 into the Command Prompt and hit Enter
3. Type regsvr32 vbscript.dll into the Command Prompt and hit Enter