Chromatography Forum

Hi there, i have an old 5973 inert MSD running MSD chemstation D.02.00. The old PC, which is failing now was a HP P4 system running windows XP. Can i install D.02.00 on a windows 7 image and have it run ok? This is one of the systems with a Jet card as far as i'm aware. It doesnt have a Bootp program like my other 5973. This one's history is unknown as i inherited from another one of my company's labs. It turned up in a box and i was told to make it work. I havent messed with it until now. My only other options are either use a linux system running xp virtually (which is vile!) or a costly upgrade to version E. I have found posts of people running chemstations down to version B or C on windows 7 but i wasnt sure if that was a different chemstation for lc/ms or gc.

Hi,

If it is a 5973 that operates with a GPIB connection ( 5973N has a JetDirect Card), then version D
is the last supported version for GPIB, Version E does not support GPIB.

If you need to go down the VirtualPC path, I recommend VirtualBox (allows multiprocessors) in seemless mode, you can install it
on a Win7 PC, very nice, but it is very important that
the disk access speed is fast enough within the VirtualPC, otherwise you get networking error when starting Chemstation.
I found by having the VirtualPC saved on the second partition of the Host OS (Win7), it somehow increases the disk access speed
even though I had moved around the swap file to different location.

Alex

Is GPIB the system that uses an interface card inserted into the PC like the old 5972 series? If thats the case, all of our mass specs (other than the 5972) are networked together. One of the 5973's use Bootp server software while the other doesnt seem to require it.

I'll speak to our IT department about the virtual box environment but i wanted to avoid that if possible as we had that using a linux based suystem running windows xp and i was extremely slow.

Hi
I'd rather install windows XP on pc and use original OS. lots of old softwares need old OS.

Hi,
Yes, the GPIB has the interface card like the 5972.

Since you have other GCMSs, you can just as easily setup a second instrument in
the configuration editor, so you can run two GCMSs from 1 PC, so if you already
have Version E running a Win7 PC, you're good to go.

otherwise, provided you IT department isn't forcing everyone to migrate to Win7 ,
I agree with dr_bahram1977 comment.

The Bootp server is only needed for those instruments that can't save their own IP address like a 6890A.

Alex

Our IT department cant source PC's that support windows XP these days. I have suggested reconditioned systems but they are preferring to buy brand new to avoid "unforseen problems". I really need to stick to version D of chemstation otherwise i am going to have to perform a validation exercise to prove that it still processes the same. I need to do a comparison test anyway as i am swapping PC's but i would rather not have to swap software. The virtual PC idea seems like a good plan if all else fails and i like the idea of running two instruments from one PC. I wasnt aware that was possible.

Thanks for the help all!