Virtual Weather Station Version 13.00p00

I uploaded a new pre-release version of Virtual Weather Station here:

http://www.wunderground.com/autoasp/downloads/vws_install.exe

This is a pre-release version, so I am limiting the number of users and not posting this on the website to get some feedback. You can email issues to:

support@ambientweather.com

Here are the major changes:

1. VantagePro2 Loss of Communcation. Found this problem to be associated with the VantagePro.DLL, which will randomly drop communication (and not recover) if the historical highs and lows are called. This is not a show stopper since it can still get this information from the real-time updates. You may miss a gust or two if it happens within the communication rate, but this is far better then losing communication to the unit. I have informed Davis of the problem, and as a minimum, they need to add a timeout.

2. VantagePro2 Lock-up During Archive Download. This problem was solved by creating a seperate thread for the download function. To speed the downloads up, I temporarily max out the CPU Performance.

3. WMR-100 Support. This new weather station from Oregon Scientific is now supported. The station has not been released by Oregon Scientific yet. The WMR-100 supports up to 10 temperature and humidity sensors, so you will see references to these sensors. The Davis VP and VP2 additional sensors are not supported at the moment - they released a new DLL with this support (archive memory download), but the DLL has a bug in it - it will not download any data. I have brought this to Davis Instrument's attention.

4. 3D Graphic Drivers Included on Installation Kit. We are using a new compiler, and now have the ability to check and update 3D graphical interface drivers. The problem before was that the program could crash if your graphic drivers were not up to date. This problem is fixed.

5. New Compiler. The new compiler fixes a number of installation issues. You will no longer have to remove the previous version of the software.

6. Foreign Language Support. This is a work in progress. You will see a window pop-up, but there are little changes to the software and does not include full language support, but we are working with translators.

7. Oslog.txt File too large. If you select Help Internet Status and File Log, you will see that there is an operating states log generated (if selected). This file allows me to troubleshoot issues and see if timeouts are occurring. However, this file was not being managed and would grow to a huge size, resulting in slow performance after several months. Virtual Weather Station will not delete this file every day at midnight to improve VWS performance.

8. Other Issues. The file for the calibration values has changed to reflect the new sensors, so if you have values in this calibration panel, write them down before installing. The Broadcast and Icon desktop displays will be slightly moved because their designated position has changed. No worries, simply move the images on your desktop back to their original position.

9. Additional Comments. You will see references to the parameters THW and THWS, which are calculated for the VantagePro2. However, these parameters are not yet implemented. We are waiting for Davis to fix their latest DLL.