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Elite not working


I

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Still no luck. Still "Update Fail" and the controller is still a brick. I shall have to send it to Hornby, but without the power lead as I need it to power the select because the plug on the select's lead is broken.
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Still no luck. Still "Update Fail" and the controller is still a brick. I shall have to send it to Hornby, but without the power lead as I need it to power the select because the plug on the select's lead is broken.
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Still no luck. Still "Update Fail" and the controller is still a brick. I shall have to send it to Hornby, but without the power lead as I need it to power the select because the plug on the select's lead is broken.
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That works every time I, and I'm sure they have a power lead. You will then be one of a few who have needed to do this. You can find them in older threads on this forum, not seen once since Christmas. We know it is not your operating system that causes

 

the problem, so the suspect is your hardware configuration, or possibly the Bios. As a matter of interest, how old is your computer?

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I have also recently had a lot of problems up-dating my Elite with the Hornby 1.41 program. Eventually after several failures after very carefully following all the instructions very slowly and very carefully, the Elite would no longer boot-up properly

 

and was un-usable. The main problem seems to be that all the Microsoft systems developed after WindowsXP, namely Windows Vista, Windows7 and Windows8 are so paranoid about security, that they will not let you do any changes without a lot of hassle. I normally

 

run my RailMaster and the Elite through a Hewlett Packard laptop computer which uses Windows7, which is normally okay. But this time it screwed-up. Windows7 is a real pain to use because all their programs have far too much stuff on them that most people never

 

need to use.

 

So I tried again using a different Fujitsu laptop computer with Windows7. Forget that !!! It was even worse. The Fujitsu would not even let me download the Hornby update into the Program Files area which I wanted, because I like to keep

 

all my Program Files together, plus details of all updates and when they were done. Each time the downloads just vanished into some unknown un-findable recess of the Fujitsu system. In fact the Fujitsu is so bad and so paranoid about security, that it will

 

not let you do anything without some fatuous blockage appearing or query popping up - "do you really want to do that ?" "Are you sure ?" Thick, thick, thick. We are not kids of two years old. I would not have pressed the action if I did not want to do it !

 

The Fujitsu is so bad and so long-winded to use, that I have dumped a lot of its unnecessary programs and all games and I never normally connect it to the Internet. I just use it to compose letters and print them and that's it. Never ever buy a Fujitsu laptop

 

with any Windows system designed after good old WindowsXP.

 

Fortunately, I still mostly use my old Microstar mains computer with WindowsXP. So finally, guess what ? First time I tried to download the Hornby Elite update 1.41 using WindowsXP, it worked

 

first time without any hassle at all. So now I am a happy bunny and my Elite is working again with the updates. Microsoft are still regularly downloading their updates and security fixits for WindowsXP and I have not needed any other fancy debug virus hunting

 

programs ever since I first bought it when WindowsXP first came out, Microsoft do it all for you and my old Microstar mains computer has never ever had a fault. Mind you I did initially dump a lot of its programs as well which I would never need, just to make

 

life more simple. I reckon that all the latest Windows Vista, Windows7 and Windows8 programs have far too much unnecessary clutter and other stuff on them and therefore are far less intuitive to use, and that is why a lot of people seem to be having so many

 

difficulties in updating their Elite units.

 

So the moral of this saga is that if at first you don't succeed in downloading your updates to the Elite and it screws-up completely, just try doing it with good old WindowsXP, long may it survive.

 

Happy

 

downloading, Ian R-D.

 

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I know it works with XP and I know it works with 7, because I did it with 7. The only trick with a "normal" 7 configuration is that you must run the Installer file by right clicking on it and select Run as Administrator.

 

Also Ian, when you download

 

a file, a box comes up at the bottom of IE asking if you want to Run or Save. Click on the arrow below Save and it gives you the option to Save As. Now you can browse to where you want to put it and do so. In some places you may have to confirm Administrator

 

rights to do so. If you didn't say Save As but just Save, the default place to save it is in C:UsersYour User NameDownloads. You'll find all your downloads that went to the ether in this folder.

 

Glad you got the upgrade done though, that's the important

 

thing. But you didn't achieve it because it only works under XP, just because you found it easier to do so. I agree some things were easier under XP but 7 is certainly more capable than XP for a lot of things.

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My laptop is a 2 year old Toshiba C660, which has recently had a new 500GB hard drive fitted as the old one broke, so now it has Windows 7 32-bit Professional rather than windows 7 64-bit Home Premium.
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There certainly shouldn't be any issues with hardware or BIOS configuration in a machine that new to stop the update working, so it will remain a mystery.

Again a matter of interest though. How much memory are you using? If more then 2Gbytes, have

 

you noticed any difference in speed in operations that use memory a lot? The point of 64bit versions is that they manage memory better if over 2Gbyte.

Oh for the days when DOS was designed to handle 640Kbytes and people thought no one would ever need that

 

much. On second thoughts, maybe not.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've got one of those as well, Fishy, plus a 64K Atari 8 bit and an Atari ST. I think I said before that I programmed a machine language game, playable on the Atari 32K machine, which sold 20,000 copies in Europe many years ago. I then wrote it for the

 

Commodore but they didn't want it after all that effort.

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  • 1 month later...

Hi All,

I too had that sinking feeling after trying to install an update to the Elite using a Windows 7 computer. No luck at all, but I had access to an XP machine and it installed without a worry. I tried all the suggestions in this thread but to no

 

avail for trying to install under Windows 7. There has to be something about the Windows 7 software that plays havoc with the installation. Never mind I guess all well so I can now play trains.

 

Thanks

Peter C

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  • 3 years later...

I have just spent 2hrs on phone to hornby service team after having the same problem. I tried to update to 1.42 using a HP laptop and end d up with update fail and a blank elite screen. After trying everything hornby gave up and told me to send it to them. As a last resort I tried the update on my Aldi pc (which also uses win7) and guess what it worked first time. It would appear that the elite updates do not like HP laptop so BE AWARE.

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HP Laptop problem is a known issue. Something to do with the USB chip technology used by HP in some of their laptops.

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