README.TXT for Agilent E1420 Counter Contents: 1 Introduction 1.1 Viewing the Help on Windows 10 Systems 2 VTL/VISA Specific Information 2.1 Instrument Addresses 2.2 Executing the Soft Front Panel without VTL/VISA 3 Using the E1420 Driver in Application Development Environments 3.1 C/C++ 3.2 Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 Known Defects 5.0 WINDOWS 7 x64 Installation. Additional upgrades needed. 6.0 Online Information 7.0 Revision History ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Introduction The help file included with the E1420 VXIplug&play driver contains instrument and programming information. This readme file contains additional information for the VXIplug&play programmer. 1.1 Viewing the Help on Windows 10 Systems The old WinHelp does not run by default on Windows 10 Systems...at least when this driver was updated. A solution was found in the third message on this web site: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-other_settings/winhlp32exe-windows-10/5971eda3-3a07-4156-af2a-926c65eb5a0c The following steps came from the above web site and allow older Winhlp to run on Windows 10 systems: To enable Winhlp to work in Windows 10, follow these simple instructions. a) Download the updated Winhlp32 installation files, which are compressed into a zip file (winhlp32-windows-7-10-x86-64.zip) from the following link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_tSrOg4FLp1T0dyTEppaW9SYm8 b) Extract the contents of of the file you just downloaded (winhlp32-windows-7-10-x86-64.zip) c) Run the Install.cmd as Administrator by right-clicking on Install.cmd, then select Run as Administrator. d) Acknowledge any privilege warnings and allow Install.cmd to proceed. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. VTL/VISA Specific Information The following topics refer to instances when the driver is used with different versions of VTL. 2.1 Instrument Addresses When using VXIplug&play instrument drivers, instrument addresses must be all uppercase letters. Implementation of the addressing scheme is vendor specific and some vendors support mixed cases. However, for maximum portability, the instrument address should use uppercase characters only. For example: use "VXI0::56::INSTR" instead of "vxi0::56::instr" 2.2 Executing the Soft Front Panel without VTL/VISA The VTL/VISA dynamic link library provides a communication library between your program and the instrument. The SFP may be executed without VISA or without the HPE1420_32.dll present. It will do a partial emulation of the hardware for demo purposes. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Using the E1420 Driver in Application Development Environments This section offers suggestions on using the hpe1420.dll within various application development environments. 3.1 C/C++ Refer to your C/C++ manuals for information on linking and calling .DLLs. Rebuilding the driver DLL should be done in a different directory than the one the driver was installed in order to differentiate the changes. 3.2 Microsoft Visual Basic Refer to the Microsoft Visual BASIC manual for information on calling DLLs. The BASIC include file is hpe1415.bas, which is contained in the directory ~\winnt\include or ~\win95\include. The ~ refers to the directory in the VXIPNPPATH variable. By default this is set to C:\VXIPNP on Agilent I/O Libraries revisions prior to J.01.00; or to C:\Program Files\VISA on revisions J.01.00 or later. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.0 Known Defects The help file is still branded as Hewlett-Packard. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.0 WINDOWS 7 x64 Installation. Additional upgrades needed. Version A.02.05 consists of an upgrade to the Installation software for installing the E1420 driver on Windows 7 x64 systems. You must also install the following two software upgrades: 1) In Windows 7, WinHlp32.exe is required to display 32-bit Help files that have the ".hlp" file name extension. The update is available at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917607. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6.0 Online Information The latest copy of this VXIplug&play driver and other Agilent Technologies VXIplug&play and SCPI drivers are available at the Agilent customer WWW site: http://www.agilent.com/find/inst_drivers If you do not have Internet access, the drivers can be obtained by contacting your country support organization. In the US, the phone number is 800-452-4844. A list of contact information for non-US countries is available on the Agilent website: http://www.agilent.com/find/assist ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7.0 Revision History A.01.00 May 1, 1996 Initial Release. A.02.00 Aug 1996 A.02.01 2/98 hpe1420_32.dll: A.02.01 hps1420.exe : A.02.01 A.02.02 11/98 hpe1420_32.dll: A.02.02 hps1420.exe : A.02.02 A.02.03 8/99 hpe1420_32.dll: A.02.02 hps1420.exe : A.02.02 A.02.04 9/02 Partial Agilent rebranding (SFP, DLL) hpe1420_32.dll: A.02.03 hps1420.exe : A.02.03 A.02.05 11/2011 This release updates the InstallShield for installation only on XP, WIN 7 x86 and WIN 7 x64 operating systems. The driver itself has not changed. For Win 95 or Win NT support, utilze version A.02.04. A.02.06 September 2019 Rebranded SFP and Help. Updated installer to support Windows10. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------