ChemStation A.03.0x on Windows XP

[segaloco]

Hey all, new here, trying to get more in touch with other GC analysts, as the internet is frightfully barren when it comes to plain old info. Anywho, down to business. I've recently been tasked with moving an old 5890 of ours at the lab over to a more modern PC (it's currently running on some old Windows 95 HP machine from the dark ages, pretty slow and annoyingly incompatible with other hardware) I was wondering if ChemStation A.03.0x would have any issues playing nicely with Windows XP. I noticed on Aglient's website that A.03.0x is specifically designated for Windows 95...but on inital inspection it's running fine on XP. What I haven't done is actually plugged in the component card and the GC and tested the software in active acquisition and control. Long story short, has anyone had any major issues with using an older ChemStation on a newer Windows?

[daniel_aut]

Nope.Good luck.

[Consumer Products Guy]

We used A.03 on Windows 3.1. Currently our oldest is A.06 on Windows NT and Win95. Agilent doesn't test out every combination, just verifies that some combinations work fine.

Agilent doesn't really like to admit that some are still happily using A.03 and other A revisions.

Or you could maybe wipe off your Windows XP and re-install Win 95 and A.03....if newer computer has 3.5 inch drive....

[segaloco]

Thought I'd follow up. My purpose was, in fact, to use Windows XP, so wiping and installing Windows 95 isn't really an option. It's a pain in the rear to use a Windows 95 computer these days, so that is why I was migrating this one over. What I found is that the offline analysis does work, and the instrument control seems to load, but unfortunately the computer I set everything up on doesn't have an ISA slot, so I can't actually mount the controller card. I haven't looked into other cards yet, but as far as I know the software itself does work, I just haven't been able to test the communications to the 5890. Hope this helps anyone else looking into version compatibilities.

[Consumer Products Guy]

Here, we found that anything newer hardware/software than Windows 95 needed an HP82341 or 82350 board even if the old 82335 board physically fit into the computer. But I read somewhere that this can nowadays be done with an adapter that goes into the computer USB slot.