bobakalen Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 Hi, I'm new to all this and have just bought a Western Master set, and am having trouble setting up on my (also new) Lenovo laptop running Windows 8.1. I've installed Railmaster and have successfully (on occasions) connected to the Elink. Once in Railmaster, though, none of the icons work for me - so I can't go into settings or any of the other programme options. I've checked that the Railmaster folder is not readonly, I'm running Railmaster as administrator, and I've checked the McAfee firewall settings to make sure the programme can access the internet. Any suggestions? Thanks, Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yelrow Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 Bobakelen, hi and welcome to the forum. I would make several points. Firstly McAfee, is known to have problems with elink and rm, you dont need an intrenet connection to run either, so you could try, disabling, pro tem. Secondly, windows 8, is also known to be a tad tempremental with both, although there are those who succeed, quite happily. Just to humour me, there is a tried and tested way that it all works. Turn off everything. wait. Connect elink, wait. Turn on laptop, wait, wait, until all lights have stopped flashing on all drives. Then try. Let us know result. You will get other advice, so before you do, try what i have said. If it is all then ok, great. If not, try what others say. But, this works every time for me. once you have it running, you will need the internet for new updates etc, but this will prove, if it is a Mcafee prob. john Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 John is right that McAfee is a known offender as far as blocking RM goes. However, that is only for accessing the Internet to download to the latest, activate the software and email RM Support if needed from within the Help window of RM. Even if you think you have it set to allow RM access, you may still have it blocking you. And there is no difference in RM operation with 8.1 compared to other earlier versions as long as you are using the RM driver in the RM folder. None of this should be stopping your functionality though assuming you are set up correctly in the first place. To ensure your initial setup is all ok, go to page 2 of this forum to the "majestic with eLink" thread and look at the initial setup questions I have asked there and ensure you can answer yes to them all. If you can't, no amount of switching everything on the "right" order is going to help. Let us know how you go. If still a problem, emailing RM Support from within the Help window of RM is a very good option. If you don't get an immediate automatic acknowledgement then guess what - McAfee is at it again blocking you. Turn it right off and try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobakalen Posted January 18, 2015 Author Share Posted January 18, 2015 Thanks for the responses - I'll try these. The first problem I have, though, is that I can't get any of the buttons in RM to work - I click on the Settings icon and nothing happens - so I can't check or update the comms settings - do you think this could be caused by McAfee or permissions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 Doesn't seem likely but you should ensure you are properly installed and running the latest version before looking further at the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobakalen Posted January 19, 2015 Author Share Posted January 19, 2015 I've gone back and installed from the demo version on the Hornby site and that seems to have taken me a step forward. I managed to link successfully to eLink and even managed to get my loco to move - if only by around 12 inches before if stopped. Real progress! I'll close this thread down now and post a new one if I encounter further problems. Thanks for your help so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gearoid Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Hi, I'm new to all this and have just bought a Western Master set, and am having trouble setting up on my (also new) Lenovo laptop running Windows 8.1. I've installed Railmaster and have successfully (on occasions) connected to the Elink. Once in Railmaster, though, none of the icons work for me - so I can't go into settings or any of the other programme options. I've checked that the Railmaster folder is not readonly, I'm running Railmaster as administrator, and I've checked the McAfee firewall settings to make sure the programme can access the internet. Any suggestions? Thanks, Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gearoid Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Hi bobakalen,This is exactly what happened with my rm. I contacted RM support from the Help button and they sent me a link to an evaluate version of the software and all looks fine. Like you, none of my buttons would work. all are working now. I am still playing around with the evaluate version at the moment. Just as an aside did you have any issues with a file called stdole2 (in system32) folder when installing your RM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Captain90 Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 John is right that McAfee is a known offender as far as blocking RM goes. However, that is only for accessing the Internet to download to the latest, activate the software and email RM Support if needed from within the Help window of RM. Even if you think you have it set to allow RM access, you may still have it blocking you. And there is no difference in RM operation with 8.1 compared to other earlier versions as long as you are using the RM driver in the RM folder. None of this should be stopping your functionality though assuming you are set up correctly in the first place. To ensure your initial setup is all ok, go to page 2 of this forum to the "majestic with eLink" thread and look at the initial setup questions I have asked there and ensure you can answer yes to them all. If you can't, no amount of switching everything on the "right" order is going to help. Let us know how you go. If still a problem, emailing RM Support from within the Help window of RM is a very good option. If you don't get an immediate automatic acknowledgement then guess what - McAfee is at it again blocking you. Turn it right off and try.Conflicting advise here. The PDF file installed with RM states in Windows 8.1 to use the driver that is in the RM directory. However RM Support says to use the generic driver.I believe that whilst a great program, RM is not working correctly for Windows 8 which is causing many of us problems. Hornby need to update the program ASAP or at least put a warning out there that RM may be incompatable with Win 8. In hindsight, if I had known the problems and frustration I would experience (have owned the Majestic for 2 days now and have yet to see a train run) I probably would have not have purchased a digital set.To sort my problems out, ideally I would like to talk to someone at Hornby technical support but the call cost (from Australia) is prohibitive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Hi Capt, welcome to the forums. Let me start by saying the chances you won't get up and running soon are pretty low. While a number have initial problems, they are usually due to a small number of setup issues and can be resolved. This program does work with 8.1, I run it that way myself. And the driver in the RM folder was designed to overcome problems with some hardware/software setups, so while it may well work with the Windows driver, if it doesn't the RM driver should fix it. Now, you've copied my advice above to go through what I said in the Majestic with ELink thread, so have you done that? If you have and still have problems, then I suggest you email RM Support from within the Help window of RM, they are very responsive and will be able to resolve it for you. If you don't get an immediate automatic acknowledgement then, despite what you have done, it's 99% your AV is blocking you and you can get them at support@rail-master.com. Or just switch off your AV and the preferable method from within RM should now work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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