How to support scanners on a mix of 32- and 64-bit client PCs?

L Larry Molter 2 years 11 months ago
2 0 0

I know this was already asked. But isn't this a common problem? Our application is written in-house, and is compiled as a 32-bit executable. We don't have the ability to create 64-bit executables yet (we're using PowerBuilder 11.2) but our standard client PC is 64-bit Win 7. Plus... The PC we build the application on is WinXP. So, yes, we have a mess. Currently we talk to the Symbol scanners using USB and the Zebra Virtual COM driver. This, of course, works only for 32-bit PCs. If we ever have a failure of a PC on the shipping line, we have to build a special 32-bit PC for them because all of our spares are built with Win7 64-bit.
 
I've done tests with the STI OPOS driver, and the OCX and DLL install without complaint on both platforms. This is a good thing. The downside is we don't know how long Zebra will continue to support this driver - it seems they would like developers to use the SDK. However, the SDKs are platform-specific. It would be nice if the 32-bit core driver and SDK would install on a 64-bit platform. This would allow us a common install for everyone. Not so, though. The installers are smart enough to detect the bit-depth and abort if there is a mismatch.
 
And... we have scales. The SDK supports scales, but the STI OPOS driver is for scanners only. Stuck again.

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