Roger,

You are correct. It appears that .NET 2.0 will not run on Windows 8 out of the box. Here is a How-To I found online to get .NET 2.0 working on Windows 8. See if that helps and let us know.

http://www.groovypost.com/howto/enable-net-framework-2-windows-8/

Keith

Hello Roger. Actually I am going to be honest here. I have not tested the program with Windows 8 at all. I do not actually have access to any Windows 8 machines. Personally I am avoiding windows 8 for as long as possible. I truly am not sure what Microsoft was thinking with this operating system.

Based on the error you posted I would guess that the problem is  with the .NET framework that is on your machine. Windows 8 probably comes with version 4 of .NET. The MPEC Sort application requires verse 2 of .NET. Can you confirm that you have .NET version 2 installed on the machine?

Regards,
Keith

I can see it when browsing with Safari (iPhone / iPad / Mac). I will try with Ie in a bit and update.

Just used ie 7 and was able to see the image as well.

Here is a link directly to the image, if someone can try this: http://www.arksky.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1975.0;attach=215;image

Clay is correct. If the MPEC Sort program is already installed on that machine all you need to do is paste the new versions of the MPECSort.exe and data.mdb files over the existing files on your observatory computer. Those are the only 2 files that actually changed.

Perhaps I could come up with a solution for this. However, for now you could download the MPEC data on your house computer. Then you can copy the data.mdb file to a USB drive and take that database to the observatory computer. Then paste that data.mdb file in to the location where your MPEC Sort program is installed on the observatory computer. That data.mdb file is what contains all the data that you downloaded. Another option you could do would be to open the new web page with the MPEC data, copy all the data - the entire contents, and save that to a file. Then open that file on the observatory computer and choose to do a "Manual Paste" and paste all the data in to the window.

A new version of the MPEC Sort application has just been released. This new version works with a new data source being supplied by the MPC. This allows for daily updates now instead of the monthly updates the program used to work off of. This also allows for quicker and more stable downloads of MPEC data.

Please let us know if you experience any issues with this new version.

I just published version 4.0.0.1 of MPEC Sort. Please let me know if you experience any issues or problems.

Good to hear!

Remove MPCSort Registry Key

http://www.arksky.org/MPCSort/RemoveMPC.zip

Open the zip file and extract the .reg file. Then double-click the .reg file to run it. You will be prompted by Windows if you want to import the new registry settings. Answer OK and the MPCSort registry key will be delted.

I would uninstall the MPCSort application first. Then do this procedure to remove the registry keys. For good measure I would reboot the computer as well before trying to re-install.

The setting are stored in machines registry. Has the re-install helped your problem?

That is highly possible if the program is having trouble finding any circulars. I will check it out and see if there is a problem that needs fixing.

Is there any more information on the error? Unfortunately that doesn't give me very much information to work with. Have you been able to run the MPEC Sort application on this machine previously? Is this something that just started happening? As much information as you can give would be helpful in trying to determine what is wrong.

Devon,

I understand and would love to be able to make this app available to everyone on every device. The short answer is that I doubt that I will be porting this to Android. This is for a number of reasons, but the biggest reason is that I simply do not have an Android device in which to develop and test an application on. The company where I work uses iPhones  for employees and we develop internal applications for those iPhones. For that reason I have access to the iOS SDK and the devices to develop on. I personally pay $99 per year to be an Apple developer and since the app is free there really is no incentive for me to also develop for the Android platform.

Sorry,
Keith

On August 11, 2011 I released version 1.0 of Comet - Comet Ephemerides. It is an iPhone app that displays the list of observable comets from the Minor Planet Center and calculates the ephemerides for the comets.

If you have an iPhone (iPod Touch or iPad as well), you can download the app for free from iTunes.


I am working on version 1.1 which will allow the sorting and filtering of the comet list based on RA and magnitude limits. You will be able to sort based on most of the orbital elements. I hope to release the new version within the next couple of weeks.

Enjoy and clear skies!

Keith

It was a wonderful reception last night. I wish we could have made it in time for the actual ceremony. Thanks again for inviting us and congratulations again on 40 years!

OK. I am uploading version 3.3 to ArkSky site now.

This update includes:
 - Minor bug fixes (including the PDF problem)
 - The addition of a "Last Comet Obs." tab.

The Last Comet Obs. tab will allow you to download and run a report against that 'Dates Of Last Observations Of Comets' page. I know you didn't ask for it, but it also allows you to sort those records by a few different ways. Of course you can then print the report out so that you have a hard copy.