Hi there,

I got really mad about Stradraw AV.

After buying this product in september 2004 i didn't have the time to work a lot whit it but it works until last week.

If i want to drag a something from my library to my workspace stardraw simple crashes. I generates an error. This error i send to your support adress but i never get an answer. But are more worse now. I deinstalled stardraw. Remove all entries from the windows register(windows xp sp1) and reinstalled it. Everything is going well untill i want to do the live update. Stardraw simply says i can't find my dongle but the @#$$%$ thing is in the computer and lit.

Trying " check dongle"  the same result. Everytime i get the page that i must perform a download from stardraw AV i did that for about six times no result.

Program Dongle the same result.

There is another problem i'm behind a ISA 2000 server (proxyserver) and i can't make any other connection to bypass it. The proxyserver simply refuse the connection if i put off proxysettings in internet explorer and i have no other way to go to the internet.

So here are my questions:

1. Why must things so difficult for stardraw to update. I want to do a update no matter if there is a proxy server or not. If i can do a update from microsoft and that works why can't stardraw do this also. The users who have a dongle and have paid good money for your product and must be able to do a update anytime.

2. How can i install your product at this time?

3. Why doesn't support send any answer?

My system is a dell optiflex with windows xp sp1(nl). Internetexplorer 6 with sp1.

I have administrator rights to install software

My dongle expires febr. 2006

Sever system windows smallbusiness server 2003 with isa server 2000

Mayby you find this all hard to hear but believe me i tried to install and use stardraw this for the last days and i'm really sick of those problems. Iwant to make my drawings not install for hours with no result.

I hope i will hear anything from you.

Leo,

I'm sorry that you appear to be having these problems, but I think that it all relates to one issue - your version of Stardraw seems to be incorrectly installed. To solve this, you need to perform a LiveUpdate.

There are many issues involved with Proxy Servers and of the few problems we have found, it has been because the proxy server has not been setup correctly. Once the Proxy Server had been setup correctly Stardraw just worked and worked great.

You did not say what your settings were, but they should be setup so that you can just surf the web from within IE without having to specify any proxy server. If you think about this, this is ideal - you do not want to have to configure every piece of software to work through your proxy. Windows is intelligent enough to discover and route through gateways, firewalls and proxy servers. It only becomes an issue with unusual settings.

I am sure that once you have done a LiveUpdate, you will be able to run fine.

Please let me know if you are able to perform a Live Update and whether it now works.

Hi David,

Thanks for your reply. Things are getting better now. I changed the proxy settings so that my workstation get's a autoconfig script instead of giving proxy settings by hand. I downloaded and install live update without any problems. But i'm still wondering why i can surf on your site with the manual settings but i have a lock up when do a liveupdate. What is the liveupdate doing with the connection at that time? Does it use different ports or scripts that are refused?

The other issue is that after (re)installing the software i need to download all library's again. I had saved these library's and copied them back to the stardraw after installing but after starting stardraw there are no library's in the tree. I understand the library's must in a database but is there a way to import library's into that database to prevent long download times?

Then there is the point how it came so far. I think it was a missing link between and exel sheet i created for price info and so on. Is there a way to disconnect from external databases to prevent that kind of things. I told you before that it took me a lot of time and stress to get thing wright.

Anyway thank for the help and please let me know it you can help me with my questions.

Leo de Blank

The LiveUpdate is performed by an ActiveX Control that resides in the html page. This control calls Wininet, which is the windows dll to access the Internet. We use standard http protocol through port 80 and tell it to use the system settings for the proxy server. Of the few customers that have reported problems with accessing the LiveUpdate through a proxy server, it is because their system was not setup correctly. If you just setup Internet Explorer with these settings and not your system, then that would explain why you can surf in IE.

All the libraries are stored in an mdb file and you can copy this file from installation to installation. I suggest that you install Stardraw once on your machine and then just overwrite the "Stardraw Offline.mdb" file that is in your "Program Files\Stardraw AV" with your saved copy.

Could you explain further what exactly your connection to an external database was ? Was this a database attribute ? or a link to an external datasource ? or something else ?

I'm glad the LiveUpdate got you going again and please let us know if you have any other problems.

Hi there David,

As a answer to you're question i can say that i don't know exactly how i done it but mayby it helps you with the following.

At this moment i generated with external datasource the exel sheet. I fill in some fields for cost and sales price. After putting a symbol in the drawing i want to see the value of the object i place on the drawing (object properties) but both the fields costprice and sale price are empty. As i can see in      " External datasource introduced oktober 2003" on this website it must be done automatic. If i try to make a connection for the cost or salesprice (modify and change the field to external database) with the generated exel sheet ( created with external datasource) i get an error calling " no tables in datasource".

If i try to open the exel sheet it says it's read only. Closing exel still gives a read only that's because my exel program stay's open in the background as taskmanger shows me.

I hope this is any help to you. Or is it just that i doing aneything wrong.

Please let me know

Are you running a Dutch version of Windows or an English Version ?

Perhaps you could also attach a your Stardraw AV System Attributes.xls file or email it to techsupport @ stardraw.com so that we can try and reproduce the problem. Could you also send the s01 file that shows the problem.

Also, please try adding new attributes/columns to your spreadsheet. It would be interesting to know whether these new attributes appear in the symbol properties or whether it is just the data that doesn't appear.

If we are unable to diagnose the problem, then we would be happy to meet online using gotomeeting so that we can connect remotely to your machine and diagnose it further.

Hi there David,

I'm running windows xp dutch version. if send the S01 and XLS file as a seperated e-mail.

Thanks

We have received the files and investigated the problem.

It appears to be a formatting issue in Excel. Your cells were formatted with:

"€" #,##0.00_-

I would suggest just formatting them as a plain number and then formatting the output of any reports. We have verified that when formatting them as a plain number, then the attributes are brought in correctly.

Please let me know if you continue to have any problems.

Hi David,

Thanks for responding. The solution you give did something but not all.

I did some test and discovered the problem. It doesn't matter if you use value or currency but the most significant part is that stardraw uses in the software the american format for numbers. I mean that the format is #,###.## but in the netherlands we use #.###,## so a money value in american style is 1,500.25 and in dutch style 1.500,25. I changed my computer settings for country to UK and made the currency format in the exel tabel €#,##0.00 and everyting is fine.

But this run me into problems because all our prices are stored in exel in dutch format. Is there a way to change settings in stardraw?

Maybe  it's a idea to let stardraw read the setting of the exel sheet. This settings can be read from country settigns in windows or set by hand when creating a external data source.

Please let me know if if there is a solution.

Thanks

Leo de Blank