How to make Encore Viewer 2.0 work in 64-bit systems

I have Encore Viewer 2.0 successfully working on my Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit system.

Find out how you can do it below.

First off, let me just say, you are doing this at your own risk. I take no responsibility for your actions or what you do with this information. I am not encouraging anyone to do this, but I realize there are a lot of people out there (like myself) that have a 64 bit computer and would like this program to work on it.

NOTE: RUNNING ENCORE VIEWER 2 ON YOUR 64 BIT SYSTEM KILLS EV2s BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY WITH OLDER C-PAP MACHINES. YOUR PROGRAM WILL ONLY BE COMPATIBLE WITH PR SYSTEM ONE MACHINES THAT USE SD CARDS.

What you will need:
A 32 bit operating system computer.
A purchased copy of Encore Viewer 2 (purchase it here: https://www.cpap.com/productpage/respir ... chine.html )
A USB memory stick, or a burnable CD
A 64 bit operating system computer.


Okay, so its well known that the new Encore Viewer 2 will not install on a 64 bit computer. It wont even try to install it. Myself and a few others speculated that it could be because of the need for backwards compatibility with older machines and their special hardware for reading the data cards. (it only has 32 bit drivers for those card readers, and not 64 bit drivers) The things is, since the PR system 1 machines use standard SD memory cards, and chances are, your 64 bit computer already has the proper drivers for these common card readers, there is really no reason EV2 should restrict the installation so long as you only want to use the program with your PR1 machine.

Okay, so here is how you get around the silly restriction. You basically install the program on a 32 bit system, and then just copy all the files the installation creates to your 64 bit computer and it will work just fine. - Sound complicated? its not. Step by step instructions below:

-Place your EV2 CD that you purchased into your 32 bit system.
-Let the auto run kick in and it should begin the installation process. (or manually start the installation)
-Use all the default settings and allow it to finish the install
-Navigate to your "Program Files" folder on your computer (usually C:\Program Files")
--You should see 3 new folders here
---2800_2kxp
---Respironics
---tticard
--Copy all three folders and their contents onto a USB drive, or burn them on to a CD- These are the files we will be transferring to your 64 bit machine.
-Take those three files and copy them to your 64 bit system.
--Place them (the 3 folders and their contents) in the "Program Files (x86)" folder.
-Open the "Respironics" folder that you just copied over
-Open the EncoreViewer2 folder
--locate the "EncoreViewer.exe" and right click it.
---Select "Create Shortcut" in the drop-down menu.
---Move the newly created shortcut to your computers desktop so you can easily start the program whenever you want.

THATS IT, Make sure you uninstall it from your 32-bit machine after competing these steps and making sure it works.

I did this with a Windows XP Professional 32 bit machine and a Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit machine.

Did this work for you? please post your success or failure below so we can all learn from it and perfect the process.

Good luck!

Thanks so very much. This is awesome! EV2 is now running on my Vista Ultimate 64bit thanks to the original poster!! Well done! If possible, can you please post the Register updates I need to do to get EV to show up on my installed program list so I can someday uninstall it (w/Windows) if I want? I'm not sure of any other Register updates that were done on the 32bit system I used for the disk install. Many thanks!

Redeye

Awesome! Got it up and running on my Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit - works like a champ! Pretty sad that the software developers decided to lock down a glorified report viewer from so many users just so it can be backward compatible. I think they call that "Customer Non-service". Anyway, thanks for the tutorial, it works great.

Redeye wrote:Thanks so very much. This is awesome! EV2 is now running on my Vista Ultimate 64bit thanks to the original poster!! Well done! If possible, can you please post the Register updates I need to do to get EV to show up on my installed program list so I can someday uninstall it (w/Windows) if I want? I'm not sure of any other Register updates that were done on the 32bit system I used for the disk install. Many thanks!

Redeye

While I think it would probably be possible to make changes to your system to have the program show up in your installed program list, I wouldn't recommend tweaking things in there. The program is pretty small and doesn't take much of your hard drive space, so there isn't a lot of incentive to remove it, but if you ever get tired of it or want to get rid of it for some reason, you should be able to just delete those three files you copied over without causing any system problems.

Thanks for confirming it worked for you. I'm glad this information is helping people.

Well done indeed...

This proves that Respironics locked it down for no apparent reason (other than the fact that there is no 64-bit driver for their smartcard reader). I would imagine that the reader would work in an emulated 32 bit setup (like XP Mode in 7), but unfortunately I don't have one to test out... So SmartCard users take heed.

savmac wrote:Awesome! Got it up and running on my Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit - works like a champ! Pretty sad that the software developers decided to lock down a glorified report viewer from so many users just so it can be backward compatible. I think they call that "Customer Non-service". Anyway, thanks for the tutorial, it works great.

Thanks for the confirmation about windows 7 working. So, it seems like this pretty much should take care of the 64 bit problems for anyone using a PR System 1 machine.

Blake,

I think you should do this as a wiki article. You can point back to this thread, but it'd be nice to be able to search the wiki for it.

Unfortunately those of us with M Series machines are stuck using a 32 bit system - which means a separate laptop just for EV or EP.

Kiralynx wrote:Blake,

I think you should do this as a wiki article. You can point back to this thread, but it'd be nice to be able to search the wiki for it.

I've never done a wiki article before, so I'm sure someone will have to go and clean it up or whatever since I'm not used to its formatting and stuff, but I posted an article to the wiki here: wiki/index.php/How_to_make_encore_Viewe ... it_systems

Hopefully it will help a few people.

2flamingos wrote:Unfortunately those of us with M Series machines are stuck using a 32 bit system - which means a separate laptop just for EV or EP.

While this is true, I do believe there have been some success stories with getting older versions of Encore Viewer working on 64-bit systems. Which would be all you need since EV2 doesnt really add any features to your M series reports.

Does anyone know where those old 64 bit discussion threads are? I'm pretty sure some people have done this..

blakepro wrote:While this is true, I do believe there have been some success stories with getting older versions of Encore Viewer working on 64-bit systems. Which would be all you need since EV2 doesnt really add any features to your M series reports.

Does anyone know where those old 64 bit discussion threads are? I'm pretty sure some people have done this..

I tried and did not have the success that others had. I am willing to try again if someone can provide really easy (ok, "For Dummies" ) step by step directions.

Someone just asked me a good question via PM about this.

They were wondering if this same process could be used to get Encore Pro 2.2 to work on 64 bit systems.

I do not think that is possible. EP2.2 is a MUCH more complex program with files and databases spread all over your computer. Encore VIEWER is a relatively simple self contained program that allows it to be transferred this way.

It seems to me that EP2.2 is looking for very specific database structures and the .net framework and stuff that if I'm not mistaken, has much of its programing relying on 32bit stuff to work properly. It may be possible, but I think it is way beyond the skill level of 99.9 percent of the people here and you are far more likely to mess your computer up messing with that stuff then you are with the simple fix I presented in this thread.

While this is true, I do believe there have been some success stories with getting older versions of Encore Viewer working on 64-bit systems. Which would be all you need since EV2 doesnt really add any features to your M series reports.

Does anyone know where those old 64 bit discussion threads are? I'm pretty sure some people have done this..

Also, you would likely have to find a new SmartCard reader, as there are no 64-bit drivers for the one that was bundled. I imagine they are out there, but I don't know for sure.

A 32-bit SmartCard reader will definitely not work on a 64 bit operating system... Probably why Respironics tried to lock it out of 64 bit systems in the first place...

Sad thing for those users is that now that the M series is out of production, these types of card readers will probably become harder and harder to find.

SmartCards are used for everything from computer authentication to storage (as in this case) to credit card protection in Europe. The technology isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but it's not used as much in the US as in other countries. There should be 64 bit card readers readily available. I know Amazon UK sells them starting around 20 pounds... Think that's around $35 or so, but I haven't travelled in a while so I haven't kept up with the exchange rate...