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Flexi running slow on Windows 7, fonts?

bayviewsignworks

New Member
I get windows 7 launched but as soon as I launch FlexiSign the creeps to a crawl. Takes forever to open a file, move, delete, etc. Planning on reinstalling - any thoughts?
 
T

TonyC

Guest
When

When did this start? Today or has it been slow before today?
 

SightLine

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Too little info to really make any suggestions. Need to know

Computer specs - processor, memory, hard drives (including type like SSD or mechanical and speed). Need to verify that the correct storage controller drivers and whatnot are installed (sometimes the base storage controller drivers are limiting hard drive speeds). 32 or 64 bit Windows (have you installed the hundreds of updates needed for a new install of Windows 7?)? Specific version of Flexi. How is Flexi configured for the file paths in its settings?

Fonts? Should not be an issue unless you are trying to have several thousand of them installed. However you could have some corrupt fonts, when Flexi loads the first time it does scan the system fonts.
 

brycesteiner

New Member
My thoughts are if this is happening when opening a file that you may be having network issues in that computer. If this is a clean install, I wouldn't think fonts are a problem unless you dumped thousands on from another machine. Are any other programs having this problem?
 

bayviewsignworks

New Member
I had to do all the updates to the OS ignorer for FlexiSign to run at all, including the Sentiel driver things, which works. The OS seems to run fine on startup and so do all the other preloaded apps. FlexiSign is the only app I have installed. There are only 400 or so fonts but I'm going to reset that to the default font set and see if I have the same issue. FlexiSign also does this "blink" thing too where the window looks like it's refreshing but not fast enough.
 

bayviewsignworks

New Member
I installed all MS updates, not sure if the video drivers you mention are part of that. And yes, I am running the Windows OS through Parallels.
 

Jburns

New Member
What version of Flexi? I run FlexiSign Pro 8.1 on windows 7- very fast. BUT I run my version in XP compatibility mode.
 

bayviewsignworks

New Member
Update, I'm in the middle of reinstalling FlexiSign (Windows 7). Windows also doing 2 huge updates which has taken most of last night and going on most of the day today. What's up with MS? Man I'm glad there's another option - Apple. Not perfect no but for my sanity they run so much better than a PC. It's not even a comparison. I suppose that's for another forum though. Flexi (SAi) is stupid not to write it for Mac but judging by their website I'm not surprised their software su__kx. I've always had problems with Flexi. From fonts to having to save down to legacy version eps in order to open Illustrator files, to, well the list goes on...
 

WildWestDesigns

Active Member
Latest version of FlexiSign (10 i think), Windows 7 with all the updates. Usually run coherence mode


Now, that makes me think you are running a virtual environment as I'm used to that being Parallels terminology for when the program suppresses the desktop and just has the "docker" of the Windows VM. It could be something about running it in coherence mode. I know a few people that can't run coherence on Mac because it causes Wilcom to act flaky and that's a known bug that hasn't been fixed. Now that's for Wilcom, but given that it happens with one program, it could happen in another. It could be a specific issue with that version of Flexi.

Update, I'm in the middle of reinstalling FlexiSign (Windows 7). Windows also doing 2 huge updates which has taken most of last night and going on most of the day today. What's up with MS? Man I'm glad there's another option - Apple. Not perfect no but for my sanity they run so much better than a PC. It's not even a comparison. I suppose that's for another forum though. Flexi (SAi) is stupid not to write it for Mac but judging by their website I'm not surprised their software su__kx. I've always had problems with Flexi. From fonts to having to save down to legacy version eps in order to open Illustrator files, to, well the list goes on...

If you are running this through a VM, it's hard to actually be able to blame Windows. It really does depend on the specs of your physical computer and rather or not it's able to handle running a VM without issues. I run all my software through VMs and there is a night and day difference between rigs designed for VMs and rigs outfitted with enough specs, but aren't designed for VMs.

Also, if you are running this from a VM, don't have to worry about updates (from MS, they do more harm then good anyway most of the time) and just deny internet connection except when you have to for program activation or something along those lines.

As to in bold, the difference is the OS, for the most part, they are all PCs at this point.
 

brycesteiner

New Member
And yes, I am running the Windows OS through Parallels.

I run mine through a virtual machine also but I use Virtualbox instead. It's as smooth as can be.

Like the other post said, there are a lot of factors that go into this. I don't know how Parallels works but I'm thinking that if the updates didn't fix it, then it's likely that 2d and 3d acceleration is off in the Parallels preferences or machine settings. Like I said, I don't use that program but I can't imagine it being that much different in setting up.

In virtualbox I would also say that guest additions (drivers and other stuff) are not installed. I'm not sure if Parallels has anything like that.
 

bayviewsignworks

New Member
I don't remember hitting the bold button.. Anyway, Yes I'm runnng it on Parallels, seems to see the USB plotter so far and the dongle is lit up I should be good to go if I can get FS stable. So I'm still waiting for the MS update to finish - yeah it's been all day now. Good thing I'm not depending on getting work done on that machine right away. Before I did the updates FS did appear to be running better - after the reinstall. 160-out of 198 updates and counting...
 

WildWestDesigns

Active Member
I run mine through a virtual machine also but I use Virtualbox instead. It's as smooth as can be.

I currently use Virtual Box as well on a Fedora host. I have tried VMware, VirtualBox, and Parallels and Parallels seems to be the least reliable.

They all have guest additions etc, otherwise you would not be able to do things like unity, seamless, coherence mode or USB pass through etc.
 

SightLine

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Update, I'm in the middle of reinstalling FlexiSign (Windows 7). Windows also doing 2 huge updates which has taken most of last night and going on most of the day today. What's up with MS? Man I'm glad there's another option - Apple. Not perfect no but for my sanity they run so much better than a PC. It's not even a comparison. I suppose that's for another forum though. Flexi (SAi) is stupid not to write it for Mac but judging by their website I'm not surprised their software su__kx. I've always had problems with Flexi. From fonts to having to save down to legacy version eps in order to open Illustrator files, to, well the list goes on...

LOL - you are loading a 6 year old operating system.... yeah there are going to be some updates to install. Try loading a 6 year old version of OS X like Snow Leopard (10.6) and see if it needs an update or two...... I'm not sure what other programs there are that will perfectly open every Illustrator file, other than Illustrator. For us Flexi only seems to choke on Illustrator files that have certain transparency or other special effects in them. In that case I export the file in a non proprietary file format that is more universal like EPS or PDF. I have never been able to get Flexi files to open in Illustrator or Onyx or any other programs either for some reason. Go figure....

Not bashing. I do realize you are just frustrated is all...
 

bayviewsignworks

New Member
This whole install of Parallels/Windows 7 was initiated by the install of the latest Mac OS upgrade which went quickly and so far the updates have been short - nothing like this,; because I prefer the Mac OS stability, ease of use and an OS that I don't have to worry about or tinker with i.e., viruses. I had been advised not to use Windows 10 but now I'm wondering if that was a mistake. I have been using Parallels and it works well on a different machine, which also only runs exactly one (1) application, VersWorks RIP. Thought this would be a no brainer. Install FlexiSign - boom. But not so fast.
 

WildWestDesigns

Active Member
This whole install of Parallels/Windows 7 was initiated by the install of the latest Mac OS upgrade which went quickly and so far the updates have been short - nothing like this,; because I prefer the Mac OS stability, ease of use and an OS that I don't have to worry about or tinker with i.e., viruses. I had been advised not to use Windows 10 but now I'm wondering if that was a mistake. I have been using Parallels and it works well on a different machine, which also only runs exactly one (1) application, VersWorks RIP. Thought this would be a no brainer. Install FlexiSign - boom. But not so fast.


Are these 2 computers comparable in specs? What have you allocated to your guest machines? Do these programs have the same resource needs?

Like I said, I get different speeds from different rigs, all run Fedora as a host, VirtualBox as the virtualization software and Win 7 as the guest. One rig, with Xeon processor and 32GBs of ECC ram (split 50/50 when running Win 7) runs Windows faster as a VM then Win 7 (with the same applications) did when I had it installed directly on a custom build rig, however, that computer just had 16 GB of regular DDR3 Ram and an i7. So it really does depend on how your rig is setup as to how it's going to act for you.

Win 7 is a really good OS, stable and I have never had a virus, trojan, malware (what ever you want to call it) since I was using it in 2009. I really haven't had a virus since my Win 98 days. If people wouldn't run Win as admin/root/superuser all the time and/or look at questionable sites/downloads etc, I honestly think that would keep a lot of these stuff at bay. Although technically, I call any script, program, piece of code that is installed without operator knowledge that does undesired processes a virus, but that could include things that some wouldn't consider to be a virus.
 
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