Problem Installing 3.0.0.1 on Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (SP1)

[Anonymous user]

I've had previous versions of Powerchute PE running fine for many years. I recently upgraded to 3.0.0.1 and have encountered several issues.

When I upgraded to 3.0.0.1, I installed it over 3.0 and the installation appeared to be successful. I ran into some problems (described below), so I un-installed 3.0.0.1, rebooted, then re-installed 3.0.0.1 as Administrator. Here's what I'm concerned about:

1) In Start Menu -> List of Programs, there is a directory for APC, but the only entry within this directory is "(empty)".

2) After restarting Windows 7 after re-installing, the Powerchute icon is no longer displayed in the taskbar (nor listed in the taskbar configuration form).

3) On the System Configuration -> Services screen, 'APC Data Service' and 'APC UPS Service' status is 'Running'.

4) On the System Configuration -> Startup screen, 'APC UPS Status' manufacturer is 'Unknown', the command is a bunch of garbage characters (no path to an executable program), and the location points to 'C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup' under which there is a 'Programs' directory, under which there is an 'APC' directory I can't access.

Here are my QUESTIONS:

1) Am I really protected from a power outage?

2) Why don't I have the Powerchute icon in the taskbar?

Thank you in advance for your help.

George

Message was edited by: CIW_George

[BillP]

1) You do not need powerchute to be protected from a power power outage. Powerchute allows you to view info about your ups (runtime,voltage,energy usage etc). It also has some basic options as far as when to shutdown your computer during a power outage etc but you don't need it installed in order for it to function(transfer to battery during a power outage/protect you during a power surge)
2) Generally speaking, we do recommend you uninstall our software before you install new software so it's possible that may be part of the problem. I would recommend you uninstall powerchute.If there are still remnants such as an APC folder etc, we may need to do a manual uninstall. This is something we don't usually recommend doing unless you're on the phone with tech support as it involves editing the windows registry. If for some reason calling us is not an option, let us know and we send you the procedure.

[Anonymous user]

Chris -

Thank you for your response.

1) I understand that I don't need "...Powerchute to be protected from a power outage." Powerchute does, however, attempt to shut down the computer after a power outage - which should be considered an invaluable feature. I apologize for not being clear about my fundamental concern about whether Powerchute is running and providing protection. At this point, I don't know if I'm protected other than by unplugging the power and seeing if the two Powerchute services I mentioned in my original posting are actually protecting my computer and providing the shut down signal when the UPS reaches a 'remaining time' threshold.

2) As I indicated, I have un-installed and re-installed 3.0.0.1 several times, all with the same result as described in my original posting. I apologize for not un-installing the previous version (3.0) of Powerchute prior to installiing 3.0.0.1 - apparently I missed (or ignored) the warning message.

I have no problems editing the Registry. Please e-mail me the procedure for doing a manual un-install of Powerchute 3.0 and 3.0.0.1 to George@CreationsInWood.org.

Thank you.

George

[Anonymous user]

Chris -

Please send me, or publish for everyone, instructions to manually un-install Powerchute 3.0.

Thank you.

[Anonymous user]

Having exactly the same issues. Can you please send me your manual instructions for uninstall? It would probably be useful to post them for all.

thanks

[Anonymous user]

I have a slightly different problem. I connected the dataport cable from my BR1500G to the Win7 64bit Pro where it detected it as a UPS Battery but when I installed Powerchute 3.0.0.1 it says "The installer is unable to locate the battery backup connected to your computer".


Any hints on getting this to work?

[BillP]

Hi Walter,

If you open up device manager and locate the UPS, what do you see? Is it APC Battery BackUP or APC UPS?

[Anonymous user]

After connecting the cable, Windows said "found new hardware and installing drivers". The device manager has an entry for Batteries and under that are two entries, the first is HID UPS Battery and the second is Microsoft Composite Battery.

Walter

[Anonymous user]

I gave up on 3.0.0.1 and re-installed 2.1.1.

I've tested it under Windows 7 x64 and it works fine - my computer shuts down as expected.

Regarding the instructions I received from APC to manually uninstall PowerChute Personal Edition - APC must have a reason why they are forcing their customers to request a copy of these instructions from APC and why they are not simply publishing them for easy access. I don't understand their rationale nor agree with their approach to customer support, but I must respect their position and not disseminate their instructions without their authorization. Sorry.

With the number of apparent problems folks are having with 3.0.0.1, particularly with Windows 7, I would hope that APC is actively investigating the issues and preparing an updated release of the PowerChute Personal Edition.

[Anonymous user]

Hi Jonathan,

After a lot of testing I've decided to forego the Powerchute program and just use Windows Power Management to handle the APC BR1500G. My Windows 7 (64bit) only recognizes the UPS as an HID UPS Battery (from the device manager window). I swapped cables (with another APC UPS) and used a different USB bus and was able to detect whether the UPS was plugged in or running on battery. Not sure which action did it but that's for another day.

The one big issue I found was that if I set the computer (through windows power management) to hibernate the PC would wake-up every 30 seconds or so ( I set the UPS Battery to wake up the PC within the device's power settings screen) and then it would go right back into hibernate (loop). (The event log had Unknown Reason for the wakeup event)

I then set the Critical Action to Sleep (instead of Hibernate) and set Allow Hybrid Sleep to YES and that kept my PC asleep until the UPS was back on AC. Once the AC was on, the UPS (through the connected USB cable) woke the PC from Sleep (as expected).

I don't know why my BR1500G doesn't show up as an APC Battery. I haven't tested it on any of my other systems nor have I connected up the USB cables to the several other BE750G units I have because this one machine is an (important) unattended server (and I didn't care until now).

I guess if I hear that others have overcome the issues they're having getting the battery to recognize correctly under Windows 7 (64bit) AND Powerchute has all the features I need (not sure if it can launch batch jobs or not from it), I'll stick to my non-Powerchute solution and write an app for me that does the battery monitoring that will launch apps and batch jobs for detected battery/AC events.

BTW: This is not a dig at the APC UPS. I like the battery product (I have 4) and will continue to use and purchase in the future. I'm just moving on to a solution other than Powerchute to help me better manage and protect my server.


Walter

[BillP]

Walter,

On your device manager, can you right click on HID UPS Battery and perform a driver update? This is what I did on my BackUPS and Windows 7 and it has updated it to APC UPS and was able to install PowerChute Personal Edition afterwards. With regards to your PC being woke up, I would think that this has something to do with some of your hardware i.e. mouse, ethernet controller etc that is set to wake up the PC when there is an activity. I would consider looking at these settings first.

[Anonymous user]

First: I got PowerChute installed.

It seems that during my install of PowerChute the last displayed error message was "The installer is unable to locate the battery backup connected to your computer". The error message just before this was "disabling native power management". I tested the (PowerChute) install on a different Win 7 64bit Pro with a different APC UPS (same cable) and it would pause at "diableing native power management" but continues on with a successful install.

The Device Manager (under Battery) shows an HID UPS Battery UNTIL PowerChute is installed then it shows up as an APC Battery. Under the Human Interface Devices there is an entry for "American Power Conversion USB UPS" but a driver update will not change HID UPS Battery to APC UPS until PowerChute installs (or leaves residual files around).

As for the continuous waking issue (before installing PowerChute), I unplugged the APC USB and the problem (waking up loop) went away. After I installed PowerChute the PC would stay in hibernate (tested for 10 minutes) until the APC was re-attached to AC (expected behavior).

Not sure which action did it but I shutdown all my (extra) services that this particular PC is responsible for, edited the Windows Power Managent Policy Group, tweaked the Power Service and ran PCBE Setup.exe as Administrator and this time PowerChute installed.

With PowerChute (finally) installed, I'll give it a try and compare the behavior to a non-PowerChute configuration.

Thanks for responding to my problem Jonathan.


Walter

[BillP]

You're very much welcome Walter. It would be hard to know which Service is causing the problem, it is going to be a tedious process of enabling/re-enabling the services one-by-one.

[Anonymous user]

I, too, am having a problem installing PCPE 3.0.0.1 on my Win 7 64 bit PC. My issue is different. I originally had version 2.0 of the software. When I replaced my battery, I noticed that 2.0 read my PC as WinXP, so I removed the program & tried to install 3.0.0.1. The error I get when I click on the final "Install" button is a popup statiting "There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A script for this install to complete could not be run.". I ran the installer as admin and confirmed that DotNet 2.0 SP2 was installed. I even ran a validator from Microsoft to confirm DotNet was installed correctly. I checked the Registery & removed a couple of entries & ran a full scan for "APC" & "powerchute". Only a couple of MRUs were found.

The UPS does show up in Device Manager correctly, referencing APC and those drivers were up to date. I even uninstalled the APC HID & the HID UPS Battery from Batteries, unplugged the UPS from USB port & rebooted. Upon connecting the USB cable to the PC, the two devices reappeared in Device Manager. I still get the same software installation error. I downloaded the installer again whth the same result. There should't be any drive/folder permission issues on the drive that the installer is on. I even tried running the MSI directly, but got the same error. Is there a log file written for the failure? I know that I don't need PCPE and if I can't an some direction here, I'll just move on.

Thanks,
Bob

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Sorry for the delay. I have emailed you the info.