EFW 1 connectivity issues solved - resolve notes for those who have it

[OrionBG]

Hello there,

long time fan and user of Atik products for more than 10 years now.
I have a 314L+ and the original USB EFW 5 position filter wheel.

I have been using this configuration on several different devices, mainly with Windows 7 and now Windows 10.

Recently on my desktop and laptop with Windows 10 (all updates, drivers, software updates done) I have had an issue connecting my EFW.
I received the following  error message: "Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {XXXX} failed due to the following error: 80040154"

Something like this: https://img472.yukle.tc/images/2001Untitled-1.jpg

And the name of the concerned key for the atik fw is: {78B6AF10-6C12-41B0-8DA9-533271F5F05E}

The core software and drivers were up to date and I had the old driver for the FW installed as well.
However it was still not recognized in the device manager.
The USB cable was new and the FW was powering on and spinning correctly.

So after a long research, I managed to find out that the issue was it was trying to open the FW software in x64 bit with .net framework 2.0, now there is a more recent version of it of course.
To fix this, there is a bit tricky procedure to do in the registry editor (proceed at your own risk!) in order to force the program to be ran in x86 32 bit version in Windows 10.

Here are the posts that helped me:
https://techtalk.gfi.com/32bit-object-64bit-environment/
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1036856/retrieving-the-com-class-factory-for-component-with-clsid-xxxx-failed-due-to-t

You have to go find the key in the registry.
The key {...} that you should be searching for and adding in other folders is the name of the key for the EFW filter wheel, for me it was: {78B6AF10-6C12-41B0-8DA9-533271F5F05E}

So long story short, driver was correctly detected and the fw was connected and managed to control it with the fw software, artemis capture and APT software.

This might help others who had the same issue in Windows 10 and FIY for the Atik instruments team.
I thought this would be the best place to share it, but there might be other pages and forums that you can share it too.

Cheers

NB: I also had an issue when the fw was spinning it was not selecting the correct filter position, no matter the settings, software and configuration.
It was solved by cleaning the rubber band that was connecting the motor and putting everything back into place securely.

[vince]

Hello,

Thanks for this! It will be very helpful for users of the older filter wheels.

Obviously we (Atik) could never advise users to edit their registry.

Vince