Problem installing AXE027 USB drivers in Windows 10

[Fenman]

Hi, I'm new here although I've been using Picaxe for several years. Until now I've had it installed on an old laptop running 32-bit Vista. Having upgraded to a new laptop using Windows 10 Home 64-bit I would like to install it on this. I downloaded and installed Editor 6 with no problems but I've had no success trying to install the cable drivers.

I've downloaded both the stand-alone axe027.zip file and the self-extracting axe027_installer.exe. I found the axe027.pdf installation guide doesn't give any information regarding installing on a Windows 10 system so I tried using the instructions for Windows 7/8. I ran the self-extracting installer then plugged in the cable. Unlike Windows 7 the background driver load did not fail, the Windows pop-up said the device was ready for use. However when I looked in the list of devices the entry for AXE027 showed a driver was not installed and no COM port was available in Editor 6.

When I ran the self-extracting installer I right-clicked and selected Run as Administrator. There were no messages of any kind.

I tried removing the device, re-running the self-extracting installer and plugging in the cable again but with the same result. The Windows pop-up was very brief and did not respond to mouse clicks. In the Properties page for the AXE027 device the button for updating the driver is greyed out so there seems to be no way to manually install the driver.

For the time being I have performed a System Restore to try to ensure there are no vestiges of the software that might interfere with further attempts at installation. This has effectively de-installed Editor 6 as it has reverted all registry entries to an earlier date. Consequently I have also deleted the folder from Program files (x86). If anyone has any suggestions on how to successfully install the driver under Windows 10 I should be most grateful.

 

[hippy]

The process for installing on Windows 10 is virtually the same as for installing for Windows 7 and 8.

But Windows 10 provides a variety of ways to get to where things need to be done, and if one goes down the wrong path one doesn't always end up where one needs to be.

For manually installing AXE027 drivers one needs to go to Device Manager. That can be accessed through the Control Panel and also My Computer with a right-click on properties.

The Windows 10 Settings App however doesn't take you in that path; leads to mostly a status report page and the more limited Device and Printers option, which is where you seem to have ended up.

If you reinstall PE6, download and extract the AXE027 drivers to disk, you should then be able to install the drivers through Device Manager. Note that this is a two-step process within Device Manager. After one AXE027 entry with a yellow exclamation icon has its driver updated, another should appear which also needs its driver updated.

 

[Fenman]

Hi hippy, thanks for responding. In my impatience I also contacted support. Between you and them I have successfully installed the drivers.

Thanks again.