FastLynx 3.x Support - Sewell Direct

USB transfer issues (including installation on Windows XP)

Support issues related to USB transfer have their own page.

FastLynx DOS Slave

Issues related to the FastLynx DOS slave and long file name support have their own page.

Access denied message on LPT or COM port

When listening as server or connecting as client on a COM or LPT port, if you see an "Access denied" message, this usually means that another program or device driver has the indicated port open, which prevents FastLynx from opening and using it. The first thing to try is to close any running programs that might be using the port. If you had previously run a program in a DOS session that accessed the port, the DOS session may still have the port open even though the DOS program that originally used the port has exited. Close the DOS session to free up the port. If you have Windows Direct Cable Connection (DCC) configured to use the port, you will probably need to disable DCC before FastLynx can use the port. After doing the above, you need to click the appropriate LPT or COM port check box "off" and then "on" again to get FastLynx to try to open the port again.

For LPT ports, this problem can occur if you have a printer driver installed. Some printer drivers have an option to continuously poll the printer port to check on printer status. If your driver has such an option, you may be able to free up the LPT port by selecting the printer driver option to NOT poll for status. Other printer drivers have an option to allow or disable printing from DOS programs. If you don't need to print from DOS, disabling DOS mode printing will sometimes free up the LPT port. The Lexmark 2050 series is an example of a driver that has this option. When using this driver, run the "Lexmark 2050 Series Ctrl Prog" and then select the Options tab. Then check the option at the bottom that says "Disable CJ2050 Series DOS Printing". Other printer drivers may not have options such as these that will allow FastLynx to use the LPT port while the driver is loaded. In that case, the only recourse is to disable or uninstall the printer driver before using FastLynx on the LPT port.

"FastLynx NT device driver is not installed" message

Parallel connection succeeds but then drops later

If the connection is consistently reliable for a period of time when you first start using FastLynx, you may be having a problem with power management features or a screen saver. Try disabling power management for the CPU, hard disk, and monitor, and disabling the screen saver.

Some printer drivers regularly "poll" the printer port looking for status information. If your printer driver is trying to use the same LPT port as FastLynx, this polling can disrupt the ability of FastLynx to maintain a reliable connection. Disable printer status polling if your driver has this option. Some drivers don't have a way of turning this off. In that case, try disabling or uninstalling the printer driver if practical.

The last thing to try is lowering the parallel port Maximum Speed value. To do this, press the "Specify Remote Connection Parameters" button and then select lower Maximum Speed values, one step at a time (the list is sorted with higher speeds at the top). This only needs to be done on one of the two computers. If none of the above helps, you may have a cable problem or a hardware problem in one of the parallel ports. We suggest using serial transfer as an alternate method.

Serial connection succeeds but then drops later

If the connection is consistently reliable for a period of time when you first start using FastLynx, you may be having a problem with power management features or a screen saver. Try disabling power management for the CPU, hard disk, and monitor, and disabling the screen saver.

Another thing to try is to disable accelerated mode. To do this, press the "Specify Remote Connection Parameters" button in FastLynx and then uncheck the serial accelerated mode box. If this doesn't help, try lowering the Maximum Baud Rate parameter one step at time. The last thing to try is lowering the Maximum Block Size value. These steps only need to be performed on one of the two computers.

My application doesn’t work after I transfer it to another computer

In the old days, you could often successfully transfer a DOS application and associated data files to another computer using FastLynx. With newer Windows applications, this often does not work. Many applications rely on installation and setup programs to write settings to the Windows registry. Registry settings are not transferred by FastLynx, which can cause problems if you are trying to transfer an application. Another problem is that many applications now install shared DLLs in directories other than the main application directory. Due to these and other problems, it is often not possible to transfer a Windows application and associated data files solely by using FastLynx. The recommended procedure when you want to transfer an application is to re-install the application on the target computer from the original media. Then transfer the application’s data files using FastLynx.

File names with certain extended characters won't transfer

On Windows 95 and 98, you may have trouble transferring rare file names created by old DOS applications that have certain extended characters in them. Windows 95/98 does file I/O using the ANSI character set, but DOS uses the OEM character set. There are some extended characters in the OEM set that do not exist in the ANSI set. Such files cannot be created by typical Windows programs, but they can be created by certain DOS applications. The symptom of this problem is that you highlight a file to transfer it, and then FastLynx says it can't find the file. The Windows 95/98 Explorer has the same problem. You can usually transfer such files by running the DOS slave on the system with the problem file. Since the slave is a DOS program, it can read the file name with the OEM characters. FastLynx will change the name of the file to a Windows compatible name during the transfer, but at least you can transfer the file. This problem does not occur using the NT version of FastLynx because the NT version processes file names using the Unicode character set - which includes all characters in the OEM and ANSI characters sets (and many others).