I have been a Pronto 7000 user for several years. I'm considering buying a new remote, as my 7000 seems to give ever weaker IR signals (is the 9600 inherently stronger?). Philips likes to position the 9600 as a pro installer product and I'm wondering if I'm going to find the programming significantly different. I'm comfortable creating screens, learning codes, downloading and using from this site, and so on, with the NGEdit program. Will it all seem pretty familiar to me?

Also, does the 9600 have built-in codes for B&K Ref 30 and Audio Research LS26 preamps?

There is absolutely no learning curve for PEP if you are already familiar with PPENG. The editors are identical with the exception of a few extra tabs found under the properties of the System device in PEP as many of the settings once available on the remote itself are now set via the editor instead. As for the codesets you are curious about why not download the latest version of PEP from the files section here and check for yourself? This will also give you an opportunity to check out the editor first hand.

The only real differences are that
- there is now a separate database to hold your IR codes (but you do not have to use it)
- there is also ProntoScript (but again, you don't have to use it)

One difference which is not obvious worth noting...
In PEP the default page view is set to 50% zoom, not 100% as it is in PPENG. If you are accustomed to the fine positioning of panels and buttons via your keyboards cursor keys keep in mind that at 50% zoom one key press results in a given panel or button being moved 2 coordinates, not 1. At 100% zoom or higher one key press results in a given panel or button being moved 1 coordinate. Additionally, using the right click alignment options does not always work properly at 50% zoom. A given panel or button in a grouping may still be a coordinate off from time to time. As such, I recommend always working at 100% zoom in PEP anytime you are moving panels or buttons as to ensure placement of said items is accurate. Working at 100% zoom also provides for avoiding graphic anomolies which result when working at 50% zoom. Recommended desktop for PEP by the way is at least 1600x1200 as this allows for 4 pages in the page view at a time when at 100% zoom.