Windows 7 and Vista Support
All of the AstroWorkBench applications have been developed on Windows XP. If you are running Vista or Windows 7 then depending upon your Access Control and user grouping you may get an error similar to that shown below in Fig. 1 when you run the applications.

Fig, 1 - Error when you run the application

 

This is caused by a permissions issue on the Microsoft SQL Server Compact database files (.sdf files) when running under Vista or Windows 7. To fix this the file permissions must be changed by following the instructions below.

Step 1: Find the database (.sdf) files

For the AstroWorkBench and AWBConstellations applications go to the DAL folder in the installation location. For the AWBScopeCalculations application there is no DAL folder so just go to the main folder called AWBScopeCalculations.

If you installed the application into the default location this will be under the Program Files folder. Fig. 2 below shows the three applications installed and the DAL folder for the AstroWorkBench application has been selected showing the two database (.sdf) files.

Fig. 2 - Windows 7 Explorer showing the database files

 

Step 2: Change the permissions on each of the database (.sdf) files

Right click on each of the .sdf files (these are the database files) and select Properties from the menu. Then go to the Security tab and click on your user. An example is shown below in Fig. 3:

Fig. 3 - Database file Security Settings

Now click on the edit button, select your user and tick the 'Full control' box and then OK. An example is shown below in Fig. 4. You will now be back at the screen shown above and you will see that the 'Full control' is now shown as ticked. OK that screen and then run the application again.

Fig. 4 - Select your user and tick 'Full control'

I will be releasing new versions of the applications (re-built on Windows 7) which will fix this and remove the need for this workaround.