Anyone got a spare file?

Hi all,
It's me again needing some more help. I had my first clear sky here for a week, which allowed me to actually align my telescope and get it tracking. While I thought that my first view of the the Great Orion Nebula was fantastic, over a week ago, the sky was darker last night and I quite litterally nearly fell over when I saw it last night! Boy, was I shaking with excitement, and the size of it...! I thought, OK, lets get the laptop out and try my first DSI image of it. But alas and alack, I couldn't get my old laptop to do it. I messed around all evening but it kept telling me my scope wasn't connected. Eventually I uninstalled the Autostar software and reinstalled it. The drivers weren't going in, I got the message "The file 'csnphv71dll' on meade LPI installation disk cannot be found". My laptop is a few years old and the OS is windows 98. Is my OS and laptop not capable of doing this job, or is it just a case of it's too old and the OS is missing files. I'm computer using not too bad, but this sort of thing goes beyond me. Any advice anyone? do I persevere, or get another-up-to-date laptop?
Thanks.
Bill H

Bill - same here - first clear sky for a while, but then it clouded over at midnight...

As for Autostar, I can't find the csnphv71.dll file on my laptop nor on the Autostar CD. So that's a bit odd.

I'd suggest reinstalling Autostar after a complete de-install. Then head off to the meade website where they issued new drivers just before Xmas.
www.meade.com/autostar/update/

Have a scoot around the Meade site, especially FAQ's as your problem may be handled there. But my first reading of the website suggests that Autostar will work with Win 95 upwards. It may be that it could be the .Net files or OS files that are missing. If so, try Microsoft's website and get all the updates you can!

I doubt very much if you'll need a new laptop though, or even a new OS. Perseverance is the name of the game

Cheers

Dave

Many thanks Dave, I will give that a go. Did it solve the prob for you?
Bill H.

Hi Bill - yep - had loads of problems getting the DSI to work. I eventually had to install win 2000 over win xp - then Meade issued new drivers which would have fixed the problem...

All is working well now and I'm hoping to get a clear night tonight to really give the DSI a run for its money!

A good source of info is the DSI message board -

groups.yahoo.com/group/Meade_DSI

Best of luck!

Dave

Tthanks a lot Dave,
Have now downloaded the updates on my PC and written them to CD to put into the laptop - no internet connection on the laptop. Fingers crossed.
Bill H.