is .NET different on XP Home and XP Pro?

[Jim Hurley]

I have an application that runs fine on XP Pro machines but usually doesn't
work on XP Home. It doesn't crash or report any missing objects, it just
doesn't communicate well. Not sure what the exact problem is because some
parts work and some don't. No errors, just doesn't work. the program
communicates with a serial device and gets info back. Sometimes the info
comes back sometimes it doesn't appear to. On all the XP Pro machines it
works fine consistently. On the 3 XP Home machines we try it fails top work
the same on all 3 machines. The serial device works fine on XP Home using
the same C++ apps that wpork on the XP Pro boxes. It's just the .NET app
that has a problem. There is some wrapper code to implement the driver
dlls, but again this works fine on XP Pro.

The app does not use an security attributes, or security objects. It does
not check any file permissions or anything.

Any ideas?

jim

 

[titan nyquist]

Are both machines updated indentically, with respects to .NET?

Titan

 

[Jim H]

Yes, all machines are completely up to date. 5 XP Pro machines 3 XP Home
BTW .NET 2 application.

 

[Luc The Perverse]

Any ideas?

I would look to see if there are any similarities other than just the OS.
(Perhaps security products, .NET versions, patches, disabled services etc.)

I had a mystery bug that caused data to be lost sporatically at the very
lowest level of serial communication thread. There was an ignored error
that was supposed to make it wait. So it was little more than a timing
issue that never manifested itself on adequately fast machines.

I'm not implying it is a timing issue - but sometimes it is difficult to see
the problem when you look at it with the wrong attitude. There is probably
a legitimate coding bug that is only manifesting itself on your windows XP
home machines.

Have you tried putting XP home on one of the working XP Pro computers or
vice-versa to ensure it is not somehow related to hardware?

 

[Jim H]

Yes, we loaded XP Home on one of the computers and the software stopped
working. We loaded XP Pro back on the machine and it worked again.

I know it's probably something that can be fixed in the code, I just can't
figure out what it could be. It's an awful big coincidence that it happens
on multiple ,machines the way it does. But, it's still possible it's a
coincidence.

jim

 

[RobinS]

It's probably some difference between the two versions of Windows XP.

The Home version does not support IIS. Are you doing any kind of web
services or something like that? Here's the page that tells the difference
between the two versions of XP.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/howtobuy/choosing2.mspx

Good luck.
Robin S.
-----------------------------

 

[Jim H]

No, no web stuff at all.

jim

It's probably some difference between the two versions of Windows XP.

The Home version does not support IIS. Are you doing any kind of web
services or something like that? Here's the page that tells the difference
between the two versions of XP.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/howtobuy/choosing2.mspx

Good luck.
Robin S.

 

[Luc The Perverse]

No, no web stuff at all.

It sounds like it is time to go do some intensive debugging to find out
where exactly it breaks!

All you have really told us is that it doesn't "communicate well" - but then
later it sounded like it wasn't making connections at all. We don't have
any code and don't really know what you are doing or even what is wrong, so
all you are getting is some guesses.

When I had an "impossible" bug once, I hired a third party to track it down
for me. I found a website that put me in touch with an Indian programmer
who found the bug and helped me fix it for less than 20$. (Of course, I
owned that code - so the situation could be more complicated if this is for
a company you work for)

 

[Jim H]

Thanks for the suggestions to all.
I know I haven't been specific and the code gets pretty complex. I don't
know where it's not working because none of the calls appear to fail
(dialogs on failed return codes). I have not installed a development
environment on the XP Home machines. That will probably be my next step. I
wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy and that XP Home and XP Pro should not
matter. It sounds like they shouldn't.

Could be a driver issue or something else.
Time for some heavy debugging.

Thanks again to all,
jim

 

[Jim H]

Thanks for the suggestions to all.
I know I haven't been specific and the code gets pretty complex. I don't
know where it's not working because none of the calls appear to fail
(dialogs on failed return codes). I have not installed a development
environment on the XP Home machines. That will probably be my next step. I
wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy and that XP Home and XP Pro should not
matter. It sounds like they shouldn't.

Could be a driver issue or something else.
Time for some heavy debugging.

Thanks again to all,
jim

 

[titan nyquist]

Jim,

Let us know how it turns out, if you can.

Titan