Help : Trying to downgrade Omega

[Karl Williams]

If you ungraded in the past the upgrade is written to the dongle. I don’t think you can go back.

[Adrian Neill]

The dongle that i’ve put in the PC was in another one and running V2.0 no problem.

[Michael Potter]

Hi Adrian
If you can contact Tony Teveris who post on here I am sure he could give you the answer. I believe he is one of the programmer’s for Omega.
If this is a bad post just delete no infringement intended.
Cheers Mike

[Bob Gilliland]

Adrian,

(>) I’m in agreement with the first part of Karl’s reply. That error message, while not exclusive, is very often what is displayed when trying to launch a protected program like Composer when the dongle is in fact written (authorized) for a new release then what is installed on the system. I would really have to question the statement that the dongle came from a system running v2.0 and that what you installed was v2.0. We are dealing with computers here; however, true version to version system swaps very, very rarely see a dongle issue. Key being, true “version-to-version”.

(?) If the system you brought this “2.0” dongle from is still available, check to see what the actual version is. It has been some time since working with v2.x versions, but I’m wondering if the system the dongle came from was actually a newer release of 2.0 then what you have installed (original system dongle came from was maybe 2.02.0 and you installed 2.0.0). Again, it’s been a long time so I’m not sure what service packs and maintenance release wrote out to the dongle and “protected” itself from earlier releases. I’m also foggy on what point release there were within the v2.0 family. Compound that with “international” release and it quickly becomes a real mess inside my memory.

(-) There is a utility on most Omega media CD’s that allows for a roll back. Since it is on the CD, I believe it to be supported by Gerber/Spandex, HOWEVER, I WOULD NOT TAKE MY WORD FOR IT. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK if you care to. The file is called GSPDOH.exe and it launches the Gerber System Version Rollback utility. If you execute the program, it should bring up a dialog indicating what version the dongle is written (authorized) for currently and what it was previously written (authorized) for (I’m willing to bet at this point you will see different releases are written to the dongle then what you are thinking). If you move forward it will rewrite the block to allow for the previous version to be authorized on the dongle. PLEASE NOTE: IT REWRITES THE DONGLE ONLY. IT DOES NOT REMOVE THE SOFTWARE, IT DOES NOT UPDATE THE SOFTWARE, IT ONLY ADDRESSES THE DONGLE. So, let’s say it is currently written for v2.0 and the previous was v1.56. You would then need to install Omega v1.56 on the system for that software to run and not receive an error message. (having v2 installed will result in the error code you received). I really don’t mean to scare anyone away here that is reading this, as it is a really simple operation, however, you just need to be “aware” what is happening and ensure you have proper passwords and media if wanting to go forward/backward. Again, proceed at your risk and with caution please!

By the way, you should find GSPDOH.exe inside the Misc folder on the installation media. Also, a congratulatory slap on the back for installing the dongle drivers first. There have been many document issues with folks plugging in the dongle and then going through installing various wares and having the dongle “damaged” and unusable. Almost all dongle protected programs want you to install that driver before the actual programs. Again, double thumbs up to you! And if all else fails, do as Michael suggest and drop Tony a line. He’s a senior programmer for Gerber and not part of support but does care about the end user and often “supports” us end users one way or another. Good luck and hope you get sorted. 😉

[Adrian Neill]

Morning all !! …. many thanks for your in depth replies. I did contact Tony and he was very helpful. Once looking into the program more it was noted that the previous PC had been upgraded to V2.1 so therefore the dongle had been re-written ………. once upgrading the new PC to V2.1 it opened a treat. I knew it would be something simple.

Once again thanks for all your help. 😀