With all the older machines out there and the limited memory storage that they have I would think that quite a few people use NC link to DNC their machines. So my question is has anybody found a workaround for running NC Link on the newer 64bit systems? And if so do you have a description or document of how you did it to get it working on a 64bit system? My older computer got hit by lightning and is no more and I have mostly all 64bit systems now. I still have one 32bit running NC Link and have tried to copy some of the files to the 64bit ones to get by the "failed to create empty document" error but cannot find which file it needs to create a empty document. I have also tried the virtual machine workaround but have not been able to get that to work either since most machines are windows home premium ones that wont let you load a virtual machine. I can still get 32bit machines but with XP being more or less obsoleted newer 64bit ones are easy to find and cheap.
I used to frequent garage sales just to purchase older obsolete computers. Dos and Win95 386's were all I needed in the shop for file servers.
You would be surprised what you can buy for $5.00.
I couldn't find a easy workaround for running NC Link on a 64 bit system that didn't take a lot of configuring and setting up to run it so I opted to buy a small form factor computer off Ebay. It's a 32 bit system upgraded to win 7 and its small size allows it to be put in the cnc cabinet to keep it in the clean filtered cabinet air. I think It was around $100 to get it and all the cables to hook it up. It was not worth it to try to configure a 64 bit system for NC Link because if it crashes I would have to configure another computer and that would take too much time messing around. With a standard cheap late model computer I can just put another one in and be up and running production with minimal downtime and sitting around.
It worked for me with XP64 no problems. I never figured out how to make it work with directly with Win 7-64, but I installed Windows Virtual PC and it works there, although I haven't tried connecting through a cable to a machine so there could be issues there I suppose. I just use it on occasion to do some manual editing/programming and verification of older programs.
Hi all,
I have found solution to problem for NC Link and Windows 7 64 bit on another site (Thank you James for contacting CNC support) and posting it here for you.
Problem is the exe file becouse it is compressed and windows 7 doesn't like this.
So, the simple solution is to run a decompressor and decompress the executable. I used (2 years ago) the file dshrnk16.zip provided on the site here Download page but it does not want to download today.
If you want to use it I uploaded it as attachmenet. Virus total shows 1/62 - works for me
After decompressing the executable and saving the decompressed version with a different name, then the program runs fine in Windows 7 (I don't have to use any compatability settings at all. In fact, it doesn't even need administrator privilege.)
No more "create empty document" error.