I've been happily running my Epilog 36EXT laser for almost a year now using Corel Draw x4 running on Windows Vista 64bit. I just purchased a new computer which has Windows 7. When I could not get x4 to work with my laser on the new computer it gave me a good excuse to upgrade to x5. Well, no dice there either.
To make a long story short - Epilog is claiming that Corel Draw (even the latest x5 version) does not fully support 64-bit drivers. I can understand their point of view on this, other programs do seem to work fine on my new machine with their 64bit drivers. For example, Adobe Photoshop prints to it with no problems at all.
What I do not understand is why my old computer which is running a 64bit operating system works just fine with Corel draw and my laser.
Personally, I have no idea who is to "blame" for this. I'm not a computer programmer so I have no expertise in this area. All I know is that I love Corel Draw, I love my Epilog Laser, and I also love my new computer running Windows 7... I'd like to be able to use all three of these together.
I guess I'm making this post because I'd like to know what Corel Draw's official view of this issue is. Also, if anyone out there has happened to figure out a work-around for this issue I'd love to hear it. I'd be happy to give more details about what I've tried myself... I just didn't want this post to get too long.
Randy, I tried deleting the splwow64.exe process but still can not send a job to my laser. Here's some more info that may or may not be helpful in this area:
splwow64.exe does not start running until I open Corel Draw and create or open a document. When I hit print for the first time I just now noticed that the data light on my laser does blink one time. However, the job does not show up so I can not press "Go" to start it. The display on the laser never changes it simply reads "Job:" with nothing else displayed. At this point the splwow64.exe process is no longer running. The act of trying to make a single print removes it from the process list. When I try to print again and get the series of errors it does then return to my process list. At this point I did try deleting the process and opening corel again but I end up with the exact same problem. The first print does not error but does not end up sending a usable job to the laser. The second attempt to print results in the errors stated above.
Thank you Randy, I apologize for my mistake then. I am looking into the issue from our side in case there is something that can be done in Draw print engine.
Oh, and just to be clear... Randy is not the tech I was referring to... that tech called me from Epilog from a 303 (CO) area code. The CO tech called me in response to an email I sent. I've also sent an email with a link to this thread to the same email address that produced the phone call I received. My hope is to get everyone talking together so that we can all get this behind us.
Mr. Coburn,
First, my pleasure to converse one on one with you. I think of it as an honor as I've heard, read, studied your
materials for years. But not nearly as much as my mentor Mr. Roy Brewer!
At any rate, about 3PM today I emailed my higher up contacts in technical support, sales and management at Epilog Corporate headquarters in Golden, CO.
I'm confident, and history proves, Epilog will do everything they can to resolve the issue as promptly and effectively as possible.
Best wishes to you,
Randy Allen