| It took a while to identify the cause of the problem in Windows 7 with our application, and all the possible fixes. The problem turned out to be the security that MS began to impose in Vista, and enhanced in Windows 7. And that turned out to be a complete roadblock, so we had to find a way around it.
As of late last week we have the solution. MS acknowledges that Windows 7 will break some applications, and that the way around that is to create an XP virtual machine running our application. The best way we found to do this was with the VMware Player (http://www.vmware.com/products/player/) software. It's free, fast, and reliable. Altogether it took about 1 hour of setup time to get a virtual machine built. Here's what has to happen to make this work: 1. Download and install palm Desktop 6.1.4 from Palm Support on the web. Install on the Windows 7 machine. Set it to allow network sync. 2. Download and install the VMware player software to the Windows 7 machine. 3. Create a virtual machine using VMware Player, and a Windows XP system disk. We had a spare license as a result of retiring an old PC, so this was no-cost for us. 4. In the virtual machine, download and install Palm Desktop 4.1.4 from Palm Support. 5. Install Trakker on the Virtual Machine. 6. Install QuickBooks in the Virtual Machine, and "point" it to the database (QBW file) you are using. 7. Connect the PDA to the USB sync on the PC; on the 1st HotSync the Virtual Machine will ask if you want a pass-through USB connection. Answer "Yes" and the PDA will sync to the Virtual Machine and QuickBooks.
Steps 1.7 sound like a lot of work, but if you have everything at hand it really will only take about an hour. Thereafter, just be logged into the Virtual Machine anytime you want to sync with QuickBooks.
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