TAP6 and Windows 7™

Q: Will the Terrain Analysis Package (TAP)™ software run on the Win7™ operating system?

A: TAP6 is supported under Windows 7, including running path profiles, coverage studies, maps, and the other rf engineering functions. Numerous TAP users are using TAP6 in a Windows 7 environment in their work.

Note that installation of TAP for 64-bit systems must be release 2315 or later. Earlier builds will usually generate an error message, such as "Error 5 - Access Denied" or other errors during the setup process on 64-bit systems. You can download the current TAP Demo and install it, or you can request a current TAP Software Setup Disk. Also, be sure that the Windows user account has full Read-Write-Modify permissions for installing and running TAP.

We recommend you search on the web to find other information about Win7 and its effects on various hardware and software configurations. For example, in our research, we found warnings about significant performance slowdowns under Win7. Those opinions are those of the writers and not necessarily of SoftWright LLC. We have not tested the performance of TAP running large scale coverage studies under Win7, but you should consider that factor as well.

Users of the TAP6 3DDisplay module should be sure that the software drivers for their hardware acceleration graphics cards are available under Win7 before upgrading. 3DDisplay requires hardware acceleration for the graphics functions. Because of the changes in graphics drivers required using the new operating system, some hardware acceleration graphics are not yet supported. Check with the manufacturer of your graphics card before upgrading. (The Google Earth export function for maps and path profiles in the 3DDisplay module does not depend on those graphic functions and is not affected by Windows 7.)

Note that even though the other graphic functions in TAP6 (besides 3DDisplay) do not require the graphics acceleration hardware, if video drivers are not yet available for your video card operating under Win7, all graphics may be displayed at a lower resolution. As suggested above, check with the video hardware manufacturer to find what drivers are available for their products used in the Win7 environment.

Previous versions (TAP5 and earlier) are not supported under the Win7 OS. Our testing has confirmed that the earlier versions (written for use on Windows XP) will not run correctly under Win7.

Virtualstore

Virtualstore is a part of Windows7 that may affect the operation of your TAP software. If TAP (or any other software) is installed and tries to write to locations where the user account does not have full permissions, the operating system will write the files into a different location for security purposes. Unfortunately, that means the application, such as TAP, cannot find the files in the expected location.

A common example relates to the message "Error in SWDataSm.DBF for TAPLicInstance" encountered on several Win7 installations. (The problem may also occur with Windows Vista when the Virtualstore function is enabled.) The SWDataSm files comprise an internal database use for TAP configuration. If these files are installed (because of the Virtualstore function) in a folder other than the intended location (the SYSTEM folder under the folder where TAP is installed), the essential configuration information is not found, and TAP cannot run.

Once TAP has been installed and the Full Read-Write-Modify permissions have been established, future installations or updates will install the SWDataSm files into the correct location. But the remaining files in the Virtualstore location may still disrupt the TAP operation.

Note that the AppData folder may not be visible. If that is the case you can manually enter \AppData in the path name in Windows Explorer.

If you find the SWTAP folder (and any files or sub-folders it contains) in the VirtualStore path, simply rename the folder to something else, such as:

The renamed folder should no longer be found by TAP when trying to open the SWDataSM files (or any others).

Renaming the folder is suggested in case any TAP data has been written into the Virtualstore path that you later need to recover.

Please email support@softwright.com if you have any questions or need any help with the Virtualstore function related to your TAP software.