News-Archive

12.26.2002 Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Linux is making its way to more and more systems. This year it has even reached IrCOMM2k! And Tux is already doing his new job inside Windows very well. You can watch him when you download and install the latest 2.0.0-alpha version. So, the next year will certainly bring the release of 2.0.0. This will mean full virtual COM port support for Windows 2000 and XP! No more problems with PSION handhelds, no more mysterious errors like 10055 (IrCOMM access conflicts), faster infrared connections and better diagnostic tools. Stay tuned for further news!

08.18.2002 English pages! The entire site is available in English now, many thanks to Oliver Schneidemann who did this translation! Now I hope to better meet the increased demand for this driver and the many requests for help I received. Please refer to the manual and also to the forum - the answer you are looking for might be in there! Note that views expressed in this Internet Site are not necessarily those of the translator.

 

05.08.2002 The Forum is back again! Many thanks to my partner site www.gsm.org.uk for giving the old discussion board a new home. All old postings and user acounts have been restored. I will soon do some design improvements. Maybe I will also switch the navigation and help elements to English. Nevertheless, you are already welcome to do your postings in English!

03.27.2002 Development Continues: Version 1.2.1 released! Although there is just a small change in the version number because I added only a few new features, a lot of development work has been for this release. First of all, the virtual COM port can now be used inside the DOS box. Furthermore, some sources of errors during the setup process have been removed. We will see if the famous "error 2" bug was killed, too. More news: from now on both a Spanish and a Catalan translation of IrCOMM2k is available. Many thanks to Albert Alcaine! And finally, I can now officially announce that IrCOMM2k is generally compatible with Windows XP. Many users already practiced it successfully, now I can confirm their experiences based on my own tests. What's next? I have got some ideas how to solve persisting problems of many IrDA devices with Windows 2000 and XP. They are just ideas which feasibility I have to prove yet. More about it soon on this page. One wish to all IrCOMM2k user: Can someone host the IrCOMM2k forum? I have no access to the old server and it was furthermore quite unstable. To keep the old postings, the forum should be further on based on YaBB - so, the technical requirement is to run individual CGI scripts.

12.25.2001 Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year ...to all the people visiting the IrCOMM2k page these days. Yes, it was quite difficuilt to reach my server the last months. Even worse, it was obviously hacked the days before Christmas so that it was necessary to disconnect it. As a result, the forum is not available at the moment because the fall-back system does not support it. I suspended the development of the driver and did not update this site the last 6 months. First, I was waiting for a Microsoft patch which was to take over some duties of IrCOMM2k (it actually does, but only for communication with cell phones), then I did not have enough time. Nevertheless, the interest in IrCOMM2k persisted (over 50000 downloads from www.ircomm2k.de!). So, now, I am planning improvements of software and documentation for the beginning of 2002. Furthermore, some forgotten translations shall be finished, too. Let's see, what will be... PS: Please note, I am not able to answer all the mails about problems with IrCOMM2k and infrared any more.

06.15.2001 Many new functions! Much time has passed since the last update was released. A new version, full of interesting enhancements is available now. Significant speed improvements when establishing connectivity in "Network and Dialup Connections" with IrCOMM2k were incorporated. An additional option allows in most cases resolving access conflicts with various other applications ("Error code 10055"). The configuration is done in the properties of the device driver. Also, the COM port name can be chosen when doing a first-time installation of IrCOMM2k. I am proud that version 1.1.0 was downloaded more than 8000 times alone from this site. I am also excited to announce, that a Spanish version of IrCOMM2k may be available soon. Unfortunately a number of email messages have accumulated over the past week and longer. I do apologize for for not getting to them earlier, but I will begin responding to them now.

06.08.2001 Too much email - and the troubling setup-issue I will have to limit my time going forward when responding to support requests . I have less time available but an increasing amount if emails to respond to. On top of that I am working on the next release, which looks promising to resolve some issues (e.g. "Error code: 10055"). Generally spoken, the release is ready. However, documentation, translation, preparing the Archive and the updating the website will keep me busy for a few days.  I therefore wish to encourage you to use the Forum, instead of emailing me directly. Please help other users also, those of you who have successfully managed to resolve issues during installation and implementation, could share your knowledge with others. And then there is the "Error-2-during-installation" problem. It is very unfortunate that these issues were not resolved with some of the users when applying some of my "standard-tips". I had to learn that there are obviously system configurations on which IrCOMM2k does not install. Sometimes installing Service Pack 1 or 2 helpded, on occasion a different (though required) driver was found to be the cause. I wasn't abel to odentify root cause yet, it might be somewhere deep in the systems setup. I am simply out of ideas.

05.16.2001 Discussion-Forum for Infrared Granted, it is more like a "toy", but as of today the IrCOMM2k board with a number of discussion forums is available. Many error reports or issues experienced by different users are quite similar. Through a public discussion many users could benefit of the information. Therefore I have a plea: please give the forum a chance, use the forum instead of emailing me. I will certainly participate in the discussions too. I have also update the German part of my website. I am working on a English version now. Roughly 20% of the downloads are for the English version of IrCOMM2k, thus, I would like recognize the demand with an English version of my website.

05.10.2001 Not only a update It took a while, but this version is a big step. The highlight is that the console window has been removed. Besides that, I incorporated an extensive error reporting method, which will hopefully leave only a few questions open. In addition the bug experienced in connection with  TrueSync was resolved. Also, the installation was simplified. A setup program will now take care of what had to be done manually thus far. Only disabling "Wireless Link" has to be done by the user - if not already done ... Working on this version kept me busy in recent days, therefore I had no time to update all parts of the website. I also owe some replies to emails I had received from users, I am hoping for your understanding. In the coming days I will catch up on these things step by step. What's next? The development of IrCOMM2k has come a long way, but I am not done yet! A few ideas for features are on my mind. More about that on the next page....

05.05.2001 TrueSync doesn't work Just when you think "now it works" - new errors come up. In this case it is related to the application TrueSync, though, in theory other applications could be affected by this too. The problem is noticeable, when the the connectivity between IR and COM freezes and after that the service won't allow to be stopped. The update planned for next week will include a fix for this. By the way... new version: I have been receiving many emails with requests to remove the console windows. Please be assured that the next release will have that incorporated. The development is finished for this part, I am currently working on the setup program.

04.23.2001 www.ircomm2k.de Starting today IrCOMM2k can be reached by it's own domain name. The pages are still hosted on the former domain, but www.ircomm2k.de can be remembered easier - and could be mentioned to others! ALso, I will have more flexibility should I have to move to another server. Please update your bookmarks to the new URL! Good news also regarding development... since yesterday a new version of ircomm2k.exe is tested, which has no console window any longer! This version is implemented as a system service and I only have to finish work on the error reporting. Bundled with a setup program this will be available with the next release. Thanks to a report in c't* the downloads have exploded during recent days. I a looking forward to the 1000th download of the current version, possibly tonight. Luckily error reports are little, should my responsiveness decrease going forward, I am hoping for your understanding. I have added a Troubleshooting-Page in order to address and resolve issues, or at least to narrow down on potential cause of an issue. Feature requests are certainly more than welcomed.  * A German Information Technology magazine

04.17.2001 New version: it's faxing! This version fixes the issue with the fax service. It was again a tiny problem with two parenthesis in the source code! But that aside... the promised fix for multi-processor systems is included. A few additional (internal) improvements complement this release, I even hope that the issues with Nokia's PC SUite are resolved, but again, that's simply a hope... As you can tell, the main page has been changed. My web server will probably be grateful for the small button icons. ALso, the technical documentation was appended with some information. And I am preparing a "troubleshooting page", on which I plan to address a few basic setup issues. IrCOMM2k is becoming more and more popular. Thanks again to all of you who helped developing this by reporting on issues and problems - and also to all of you, who simply told me that it works!

04.12.2001 It doesn't fax - and other problems IrCOMM2k doesn't work with the Windows 2000 fax service. I was able to reproduce this on my system, and I am positive that this will allow me to identify the root cause. With a little luck I might have a fix in the next version. An additional issues affects all owners of multiprocessor-systems. A foolish bug in the initialization of the driver causes a crash already during the installation. This bug will be resolved in the next release. Also, on some systems the Nokia PC Suite is apparently causing problems. One user reported that the issue had been introduced with version 1.01. - 1.0.0 apparently works just fine. But there were reports also that it works OK with the new version. I will pursue a solution for this, the obstacle here is that I don't have any appropriate test devices. This might cause a little delay in resolving this issue.

04.02.2001 First update completed The new version 1.0.1 of  IrCOMM2k resolves the "Visual-Basic-Problem". Some applications shouldn't be using the Infrared-COM-Port any longer. Furthermore, the service application shouldn't shutdown any more by itself. I did improve error handling there.. How to copy the update over the existing version is described in the updated installation instructions. Should the new version cause any problems, you could still download the predecessor here. No - the console window still exists, and it might even survive into the next release. Only when the driver kernel works mostly error free, this window will be eliminated. A tip in regards to that: you could create a link to ircomm2k.exe and then set the properties, minimize the window on start.

03.27.2001 English Installation Instruction Available Good news for all non-German speaking users: You can find an English installation guide on www.gsm.org.uk. Furthermore an English version of the binary ZIP file is available. Many thanks to the webmaster of that side for translating!

03.27.2001 Problem with Visual-Basic-Applications Applications designed with Visual Basic which use a specific ActiveX component to address the Infrared-COM-Ports (MSComm), won't run with the existing version of  IrCOMM2k. Other applications, designed similar to the MSComm-Component may experience this issue as well.  The problem can be identified when the application won't read data received via Infrared or even reports a read error. I was able to reproduce this utilizing PEP2000 (Cellphone-Utility). An error report I received confirms that the HotSync for the Visor does not work either. I suspect - and hope - that the root cause is the same. Since I narrowed down on the culprit as much as possible, I will resolve this issue in the coming days. A new version should be available early next week.

03.20.2001 IrCOMM2k is here - test, test, test! After 2 months development effort, the first version of IrCOMM2k is available. I have decided, to release IrCOMM2k covered by the  GNU Gereral Public License. Thus, anyone can use the driver and distribute it. I just would like you to extensively test it in regards to errors and incompatibility issues. This version isn't "neat" yet und has a few minor bugs, but in essence it should work. At least all tests on my system and with the notebook of a friend of mine were successful: dialup to the Internet with Siemens S35i, HotSync with Palm IIIx, Terminal (HyperTerminal, Tera Term). There is a chance for some nasty, hidden bugs, which may only cause problems on occasion, or only under very specific circumstances. Therefore I am a little depending on the "field-test". Only that way I could further improve not only usability but also compatibility. Whoever notices an error should: please report it via the bug report page (please complete the entire form).