[hpsdr] Windows 7 / 64bit OS and PowerSDR

[George Byrkit]

Dear Michel,
I'm glad to hear that you have success, and as I suspected, you were running the
bin/release folder from SVN, and had NOT done an install of the software.

The important take-away information for everyone is (at least for Windows software...):
	1) the 'bin\release' folders in SVN might be used to update a current, functioning
installation
	2) they are NOT intended as a 'starting point', unless you have the needed Visual
Studio product installed and configured, and build the executable and run it
	3) the best and preferred way to start is to download and use the 'installer' for
the software that you want to use

The installers will install or check for the needed prerequisites.  For example, the .Net
Framework installers are too big to put in PowerSDR or Kiss Konsole, but the installers
check whether you have the correct or better version installed, and warn you if you don't,
not allowing the installation to continue until you do have them installed.  The
installers contain and install the needed VC Redistributables, which are DLLs that are
used by C and C++ code to run.  PowerSDR definitely needs the MSVC2010_Redist.exe package
for x86 (regardless of whether you have 32 bit or 64 bit OS.)

Why only the redistributable package for x86 (32 bit)?  Because all the C and C++ code was
compiled as 32 bit code.  Can you recompile as 64 bit code?  Yes, but it won't work!  Why
won't it work?  Other components are 32 bit DLLs and such, and you CANNOT mix 32 bit and
64 bit code, so all the code MUST be 32 bit code.  And the C# and VB.Net code is set to
build as x86 code for this reason.  If it were to be built as x64 (64 bit) code, it would
complain about all the 32 bit DLLs being not usable.  We've spent quite some time dealing
with these issues, and we settled on this solution as the only viable solution.  Everyone
installs and runs the same code.

As always, if you have problems, posting an accurate copy of the error message and stack
trace is the best way to get quick and effective (and correct) help.  Michel did a great
job posting the error text that he got, which allowed me to zero in on exactly what his
likely problem was, and how it was caused (running from bin\release code, rather than from
installed code.)

73,
George K9TRV


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