Also, have you tried the compatibility mode?

6 minutes ago, lew said:

Have you considered a dual boot on your W10 machine? 

Yep.  Made a USB bootable install of win10x32 but no matter what I tried I couldn't get that PC to boot off of USB and install it.  Same for a bootable CD/DVD.

 

not being a smart a$$ but did you change the BIOS boot order?

Mach3 runs fine. No compatibility issues.  What doesn't work is the communication between mach3 and the CNC controller. 

Just now, lew said:

not being a smart a$$ but did you change the BIOS boot order?

Yep.  Been there.  Done that. Made no difference on the refurbished PC I bought for the job. 

FAT32 or NTFS

BIOS EFI or UEFI?

another option if you can't get dual boot to work-

 

https://www.virtualbox.org/   then install W7 in the virtual environment

Edited March 14, 20233 yr by lew

I'm at the point now where what I have should work.  I suspect the parallel cable may be flawed. Next time I feel like sleuthing again I'll take the cable off my Probotix CNC and try it.  If that doesn't make a difference then the USB to parallel adapter moves higher on the "might be damaged" list.   If I knew better how Mach3 installs, such as does it checks for a parallel port or just assume one will be there, then the sequence order of installing drivers may make a difference. 

Device manager never shows an LPT1 port even after the driver for the USB to parallel adapter is installed.  Mach3 shouldn't be looking there as a path to the controller,  but under ports in Mach3 there are only two LPT port addresses too choose from.  

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/quick-start/create-virtual-machine

If you have an old parallel cable laying around, you could make a loopback plug to test the USB to Parallel adapter-

@Larry Buskirk's Hyper-V suggestion is a good one!

Dug out my old multimeter and put new batteries in it.  Checked every lead in the parallel cable for continuity between the ends.  No flaws detected nor any crossed wires.  That gives it a passing grade.  I'm now suspicious of the adapter.  Where I bought it from warns there are counterfeit copies out there that won't work.  The source I bought it from though was one of two sites the mill manufacturer recommended.  The other end of the cable plugs into the controller box.  That jack might also be flawed, meaning it'll go back to the manufacturer if true.   I'm not sure how to test it other than by elimination though. 

Model/make of adapter?

37 minutes ago, lew said:

Model/make of adapter?

UC100.  CNC motion controller.  Not sure who makes it although CNCDRIVE.com might be the original source. The at least have all the drivers and install software you can download for it. 

I see their site says install on Windows XP only?

1 minute ago, lew said:

I see their site says install on Windows XP only?

Maybe I read that wrong!

I had some laser software that wouldn’t run unless I installed an older version of .net. Grasping at straws here 

When you run their installer it list every version of Windows including win10x64bit.

The user manual you can find at that site shows the error I get when running Mach3 and the fix is installing the .NET framework from Microsoft.  I would have thought win10 included it but perhaps not. 

4D

I'd install it. I don't think each new version of .net supersedes the old one but that might not be accurate.