Can anyone provide a definitive answer as to whether Windows 7 (64-bit) is supported by the 2011 FRC software (WRS C/C++, Netbeans, Labview, Cypress board driver, Driver Station)? Many students are getting new laptops for the holidays or have recent laptops and they are all coming with Windows 7 in 64-bit mode. I’m just trying to head off any compatibility problems before the build season starts. Any Beta-test folks care to comment? I’m sure that I’m not the only one wondering about this and it would be nice to get the answers so we can prepare.
And yes, I know all about Xen, VmWare, KVM, etc. I’m a Linux guy who uses them all of the time. But, I’m trying to find out if I need to use them for the team before I go to the trouble of creating a VM solely to run a 32-bit WinDoze version (and all of the USB and Ethernet compatibility problems that a VM brings to the table).
I understand it is not supported. From Bill’s Blog:
'Please note the version of Workbench provided in the FRC Kit of Parts (2009 – 2011) is not certified for use on 64-bit Windows operating systems. Please use the C/C++ section of the FIRST Forums for questions about this issue ’ http://frcdirector.blogspot.com/2010/12/view-from-30000-feet.html ]
I installed Workbench on my Win 7 64-bit laptop with no trouble and have done a little work in it. That being said, a few hours’ worth of tooling around probably wouldn’t show up many problems.
I’d like to hear from someone who has worked with Workbench on a 64-bit system for longer than I have…here’s hoping students’ new batches of Christmas laptops won’t be obsolete in FIRST this year
Team 166 has noticed this bug for the last couple of years. It doesn’t seem to affect everyone - many of our laptops are 64bit 7, but only some have these problems. The problems can be anything from annoying to crippling - one person’s laptop can’t open projects, which means he can’t work on any code. Note that we use Wind River and Labview, but only Wind River has ever shown any problems.
tl;dr: It may or may not affect you, but if it does it sucks.
I ran Wind River Workbench on Windows 7 x64 all last season without any issues, and for a good amount of coding. I can’t speak for any of the other software, though.
Wind River is the only software used in FRC that currently doesn’t support 64bit OS’s.
The Cypess driver will work with Windows 7 this year, and as far as i know, Labview doesn’t have an issue with Win 7 64bit, this extends to the driver station and dashboard which are both coded in Labview. Netbeans also shouldn’t have any trouble due to it being an actively developed IDE.
The reason Wind River doesn’t work is because when it was developed (2007ish) 64bit OS’s weren’t as prevalent, and windows 7 didn’t exist.
As has been said, sometimes Wind River works fine on Win 7 64bit, but sometimes it is missing certain dialogs.
Has any beta team had success in running Wind River within 7’s XP mode? We may be getting a brand new laptop this year and it’ll kinda be a pain if we can’t use it
No one on our team has tried Win 7’s XP mode, but from what I’ve read, its basically a special Virtual Machine (VM) with XP installed. Becuase its a VM, you will probably run into problems with usb devices, and possible networking. Also remember that you have to install everything onto the VM.
We used Windows 7 for the second part of the year last year since our computer died. Everything worked great (except I’m not a fan of windows 7). We only used labview though.
I’ve been using WindRiver on 64-bit Windows 7 for quite a while… RobotPy was in fact developed on a 64-bit Windows 7 machine, using both the IDE and command line tools. I’ve not seen any issues.
