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Compaq Visual Fortran help needed

emilyjordan
Beginner
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Several years ago we bought licenses for Compaq Visual Fortran. Compaq was bought by HP. This software then was sold to Intel.

We are upgrading to new PCs and are trying to install this Fortran package on them. At the point in the installation process where we input the license number, the install quits because of an invalid license number.

How do we get past this error so that we can install the Fortran package?

Thanks,
emily.jordan@tinker.af.mil
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TimP
Honored Contributor III
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Quoting - emilyjordan
Several years ago we bought licenses for Compaq Visual Fortran. Compaq was bought by HP. This software then was sold to Intel.

We are upgrading to new PCs and are trying to install this Fortran package on them. At the point in the installation process where we input the license number, the install quits because of an invalid license number.

No, HP retained ownership of CVF.
CVF is difficult to install on newer OS. It depends on modified Microsoft components for which support was dropped several years ago. You may have to give more detail, in case someone here is able to help.
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Steven_L_Intel1
Employee
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Yours is perhaps the fourth or fifth report I have seen recently of this problem. I do not know of any reason why the CVF install should "suddenly" stop accepting valid serial numbers, but CVF is unsupported and no resources are available to investigate or fix this. (I asked the engineer who worked on the CVF installer and he said he no longer has a copy of the sources.)

I haven't been able to reproduce the problem on my system. It's a mystery, but it looks as if it will stay that way. HP has nobody who could help even if they wanted to. All I can suggest is that it's time to put CVF to rest and switch to Intel Visual Fortran.
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jarvusluntatintel
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A few months ago I tried to install CVF and also had the same problem. I have switched to Intel, but I was investigating some legacy source code and wanted to step through the code to understand it better. I made a first shot at compiling it with Intel, but realized it would take some work (and there were someother issues with that also).

I have VMware player (and I know Microsoft has a virtual machine also). Are there old, VM,versions of operating systems out there that CVF would install on? Or would there likely still be problems? Anyone have thoughts on this?
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Steven_L_Intel1
Employee
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I don't think it's an OS issue - I've seen reports on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, both older OSes. I can't even think of what might be going on behind the scenes to make this stop working. The one common thread seems to be a floating license serial number, but the install itself doesn't do anything other than look at the serial number to see if it's valid.

If you need help getting going with Intel Visual Fortran, we'd be glad to assist.
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tropfen
New Contributor I
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Hello Steve,

in an institution i am sometimes working for, we have the following observation.

There are computer where we were able to install CVF on a new OS installation (Win XP Prof.). After using this installation we have removed the installation for testing. Now we are not able to install CVF newly. The difference between both is at least the installation of all new windows updates.

We havent tried by now to start with the old original OS recovery. (No time by now)

We have tried academic licences and single commercial licences. The same problem with both.

Frank
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anthonyrichards
New Contributor III
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To the original poster: which version of CVF are you trying to install?
I have CVF installed on a workstation operating Window XP professional dated 2002, with SP3 . I First install Developer studio with the CVF Standard 5.0x to 6.6 standard upgrade using its supplied key. This requires the use of a special 'previous' key xxx, supplied by Compaq (or maybeHP)as the previous 5.0x keywill not work. Then I install a Standard to Professional 6.6 upgrade using its supplied key, followed by the 6.6 to 6.6c update. CVF in Developer Studio continues to run OK for me, and I had to re-install it last year when I screwed up my software registry keys. I had no problem.

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tropfen
New Contributor I
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Quoting - anthonyrichards
To the original poster: which version of CVF are you trying to install?
I have CVF installed on a workstation operating Window XP professional dated 2002, with SP3 . I First install Developer studio with the CVF Standard 5.0x to 6.6 standard upgrade using its supplied key. This requires the use of a special 'previous' key xxx, supplied by Compaq (or maybeHP)as the previous 5.0x keywill not work. Then I install a Standard to Professional 6.6 upgrade using its supplied key, followed by the 6.6 to 6.6c update. CVF in Developer Studio continues to run OK for me, and I had to re-install it last year when I screwed up my software registry keys. I had no problem.

Not beeing the original poster i would like to add our configuration.
In our part it is CVF 6.5 Prof. The CDs are in the same box as the key.

The problem is depended to the computer. There are computers with the problem and computers without the problem. No systematic for us.

Frank
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emilyjordan
Beginner
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It is Professional Edition Version 6.5 that we are having trouble loading.

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Steven_L_Intel1
Employee
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Emily,

Send me an email at steve.lionel at intel.com with the serial number you are using. I can at least check to see if it is correct. But if it is, there's nothing I can do to help work around the issue.
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dannycat
New Contributor I
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Emily,

Send me an email at steve.lionel at intel.com with the serial number you are using. I can at least check to see if it is correct. But if it is, there's nothing I can do to help work around the issue.

Emily,

Although I have not had any problems intalling CVF yet (Touch wood!) I have experienced installation problems with other software applications and the usual cause is one of security settings. I'm wondering if a security update has barred the way for the installer to get at the licence file.

This is a long shot as no-one else has suggested it but maybe worth checking out. You will probably need administrator status to install CVF.
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Steven_L_Intel1
Employee
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There is no license file involved at this point. Something is interfering with the installer's code that validates the serial number. It is a straightforward mathematical test that does not involve external files.
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bgloeckner
Beginner
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I ran into this same problem this week running with XP SP2. I tried several different computers without any success. I could finally load it on a Window 2003 Server. As as result, I built virtual machine just for this development.

Best of luck.

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emilyjordan
Beginner
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Quoting - tim18
No, HP retained ownership of CVF.
CVF is difficult to install on newer OS. It depends on modified Microsoft components for which support was dropped several years ago. You may have to give more detail, in case someone here is able to help.

If we cannot resolve the Compaq license numbers and end up buying Intel Visual Fortran, we will be using it with Vista and will not have adminstrator privileges. Will it be necessary to buy Microsoft Visual Studion to get everything to work? Will we be able to use the Fortran IDE? And will the command-line tools for compiling work?

Thanks.
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Steven_L_Intel1
Employee
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You will not need to buy anything extra - Intel Visual Fortran includes the necessary Visual Studio bits, just as CVF did. You will be able to use the Visual Studio IDE to develop. Its appearance is a bit different from CVF, but the fundamentals are mostly the same. You should read my whitepaper on migrating to CVF for details.

The administrator privileges thing is a question mark, though. I know that for VS2005, administrator privileges are required but I think maybe not for VS2008. By the time you buy, 11.1 will be out and it uses VS2008 as the IDE. I can do an experiment on this and will let you know what I find.
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Steven_L_Intel1
Employee
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I verified that a "Standard" user can use the Visual Studio 2008 IDE as provided by Intel Visual Fortran 11.1 on Windows Vista. No admin privileges needed.
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emilyjordan
Beginner
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There is no license file involved at this point. Something is interfering with the installer's code that validates the serial number. It is a straightforward mathematical test that does not involve external files.

Steve,
Thank you for the info about the license numbers. Today we loaded the Compaq Fortran on an HP DC5850S that was running Vista. We used the 2nd of the "Good" license numbers and it was accepted. Then we attempted to load the same software on an HP XW8600 Workstation, runningVista,(which is the final destination for all us). The install failed due to "invalid" license number.

So perhaps we can clear Microsoft Vista from causing the error and attribute to the HP hardware?
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tropfen
New Contributor I
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Quoting - emilyjordan

Steve,
Thank you for the info about the license numbers. Today we loaded the Compaq Fortran on an HP DC5850S that was running Vista. We used the 2nd of the "Good" license numbers and it was accepted. Then we attempted to load the same software on an HP XW8600 Workstation, runningVista,(which is the final destination for all us). The install failed due to "invalid" license number.

So perhaps we can clear Microsoft Vista from causing the error and attribute to the HP hardware?
Hello,

have a look if there is a difference between both computers in the part of what Intel is calling "CPU Execute Disable Bit" (short XD) or AMD is calling "no-execute page-protection". This might be the course in combination with the microsoft Data Execution Prevention .

Frank
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Steven_L_Intel1
Employee
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Emily,

I have literally NO idea what might be causing this problem. None. It hardly seems possible to me, yet you are not the only user to report it. What I find suspicious is that all of the reports started coming in about a month or so ago, so SOMETHING changed on peoples' systems that caused some of them to start rejecting the numbers. I can't think of what could do that.
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emilyjordan
Beginner
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Quoting - tropfen
Hello,

have a look if there is a difference between both computers in the part of what Intel is calling "CPU Execute Disable Bit" (short XD) or AMD is calling "no-execute page-protection". This might be the course in combination with the microsoft Data Execution Prevention .

Frank

Frank,
I think you are zeroing in on the problem. The PC with a successful load has an AMD processor. The PC with an unsuccessful load has an Intel processor. Can we get to this Disable bit and change its value? or something?

Thanks.
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Steven_L_Intel1
Employee
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All relatively recent Intel processors also support this option.

You can try turning it on or off by right clicking on My Computer and selecting Properties. Then click on Advanced, Performance > Settings, Data Execution Prevention. You can select to remove DEP from specific executables. If you wanted to try this, name the X86SETUP.EXE and not the one at the top level.
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