Shifting from win10 PRO to win 10 home, Flexi 8.6 dongle not working

[bob]

Had to get a new PC the other day. Moved most everything over using Laplink. I had been running Flexi 8.5 or maybe 6 [it's out in the shop and I'm in the house] and it had moved over properly from the old windows 10 PRO to my fine new windows 10 home machine. I moved the dongle to the new machine. did a restart just to make sure. I tried to run Flexi, the Flexi flash screen appears and eventually the dialog telling me 'Cannot find the security key that matches the password'. Meaning it's having a problem with the dongle.

Then, to add to the weirdness, I start Production Manager and lo, it starts with no problems. I create a device for my printer, drop a convenient JPG in as a print job, and send it. It prints just fine.

I leave the dongle in the new machine and, on the old windows 10 Pro machine, exactly the same behavior. Production Manager runs and Flexi does not. I move the dongle back to the old machine. Exactly the same results. This is even weirder since Flexi was running fine before I moved the dongle to the new machine and then back again.

I assume that Production Manager requires the dongle because when I remove it completely it generates the same message as Flexi and closes.

The only difference between the two machines [besides windows version] is that the old machine had two ethernet ports and the new machine only has one. Because of this, I run both machines, my printer, and my internet connection through an ethernet switch. That shouldn't matter at all since everything that should have anything to do with this change works properly.

I know my Flexi is old but then so am I. We plan on going out together. Regardless I will not upgrade Flexi for a plethora of reasons. It's just not a possibility. I can, and probably will, upgrade the win 10 home to PRO but I really don't think that's my problem.

I'm pulling my hair out, what little I have left, over this nonsense. I desperately need help

 

[RustyNZ]

Late reply but was just scanning through old S101 emails. Anyway, I wouldn't trust a software package to copy everything over properly from an older computer, have you tried removing Flexi on the new computer and reinstalling it? That would be the first thing I'd try. Sounds like it does detect your dongle as when you remove it Production Manager behaves differently. Hopefully you've already got it all working by now.

Shouldn't have anything to do with your ethernet switch or Win10 Pro/Home differences I don't think.

 

[Solventinkjet]

Open the install manager and see if the password reset. Seems to happen randomly sometimes.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Since either one of those Flexi versions that you think that you may have are both EOL, there is always a chance that any new Windows update will kill functionality. You may indeed get it to work now, but there is no promise that the next update (the odds are greater with the 2 big updates a year) won't "kill" functionality.

In all honest, VM an older version of Windows on your new computer, pass thru some connections and call it a day.

I would suggest moving to Win 10 PRO as the Home version is really for the normie beta testers before it gets rolled out slightly later to Pro and Enterprise.

Back to the original question, I tend to favor Dusty's thoughts and just do a fresh install. Migrations tend not to be perfect, even on the latest and greatest of software versions on OSs that it was compiled on.

Drivers from the dongle firmware could have been affected as well. I have had that happen.