Home of DirectSOFT on the web

Welcome to the home page of DirectSOFT on the web (henceforth known as DSPotw), the central repository for all things DSPotw related.

DirectSOFT v5.1 is the first version of our PLC programming software that contains links to 'DirectSOFT on the Web'. When you select this link, the software will retrieve - you guessed it - the 'DirectSOFT on the Web' page from the Host Engineering web site. We will use the contents of this page to keep you informed of what's going on at Host Engineering. New products release information, product update information, technical support tips, etc. will all be retrieved from our web site and displayed for your viewing pleasure.

Our goal is to open a communication channel with all of our customers, and if you didn't know that you are one of our customers, we'd like the chance to introduce ourselves to you. We thought about an Email newsletter, but they offer only one-way communication, and there's too much Email already, plus managing all that subscribing and unsubscribing is a little too old school for 2007 and beyond. So we opted to enhance a feature that was already in DirectSOFT and let it fetch the information we wanted to present to you.

There are two ways to have DirectSOFT5 fetch the latest DSPotw page:

From DSLaunch, simply left-click the 'DirectSOFT on the web' selection at the top of the left column. The DSPotw page will appear in the right-hand pane of DSLaunch.
From DirectSOFT5 - Programming, click Help-> DirectSOFT on the Web (or optionally click the 'www DSP' toolbar icon). The DSPotw page will appear in a dialog box.

Tech Tips Archive

This is an archive of all the Tech Tips that have appeared in 'DirectSOFT on the web'.

01-23-08 LookoutDirect & DLPlus - Updated versions to run with DirectSOFT v5.2 - If you are currently using LookoutDirect or DLPlus on the same computer as DirectSOFT version 5.0, 5.1 or 5.2, then you may experience a problem if you start DirectSOFT v5 AFTER you start LookoutDirect or DLPlus - if you start DirectSOFT v5 first, you should not see any problems. This issue stems from the fact that LookoutDirect & DLPlus share the communication server and the element server with DirectSOFT. The first product to get started on the PC will start these servers running and the remaining products will use the servers that are already running when they start up. As long as the products are all built with the same version of the servers everything is fine. But when these products are built with different versions of the servers, the product with the latest version needs to be started first. To remedy the potential problems, we rebuilt LookoutDirect and DLPlus with the latest communication and element servers (v5.2).

06-28-07 Windows Vista - Updated DS500.Bat - If you are using DirectSOFT v5.0 or v5.1 on a PC running Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system, clicking the DS500.Ini entry in DSLaunch does not edit the proper DS500.ini file. The existing version of the file edits the copy of DS500.Ini that is installed in C:\Windows, but the UAC (User Access Control) measures in place under Windows Vista will not let you make changes to the file - for the gory details, check out the Tech Tip from 04-10-2007. To fix this problem, we've published updated .Bat files that are 'Vista-aware'. You can download an updated copy of the appropriate .Bat file and replace your existing copy that's located in the C:\Windows folder.

For DirectSOFT v4.0, download this one: DS400.ZIP, For DirectSOFT v5.x, download this one: DS500.ZIP.

04-10-2007 Windows Vista - Editing DS500.Ini - If you are using DirectSOFT on a PC running Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system and you need to edit the DSxxx.INI file (where xxx is 500, 400, etc.), the security measures of Vista present an interesting issue. During installation, DirectSOFT's Ini file is placed in the C:\Windows folder and under Microsoft's other operating systems you can edit this file (assuming you have adequate permissions, of course). Vista actually prevents you from editing the file in the C:\Windows folder, and instead creates a "virtualstore copy" and redirects DirectSOFT's access of the "real" file to the virtualstore copy. The distressing part is that it offers no clue that it's doing this for you. So if you need to make changes to DirectSOFT's Ini file, the file you need is located at: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Windows\DSxxx.INI