By what I have read in this forum and on CNET and from my own experience I have learned that NEO and its software are completely unimpressive. This software won't do this, this won't do that, why does it reboot my computer, why the other error messages. Just so you all will know I am not a techie but I am closer to being one than not. It just isn't worth the time and frustration. Like somebody wrote before, "I wanted a remote not a hobby". Hell, this ain't a hobby, this is hard labor! Philips probably is embarrased and they should be. By the way, the CNET user rating was prettly low. I gotta go folks. Taking this junk back to the store.

Monte! Monte! Monte! You didn't give it enough time. I have had mine for several months now and have had no problems other than locking up once in a blue moon. Sure its time consumming if you want it to look sweet. The resources on this site are exceptional (complete system ncf's, descrete codes, channel logo bmp and more)and the people will try in every way to help you with problems. I sepcifically bought this remote for the reason that buttons can be created, resized, renamed and placed the way you want them. And the price tag. A sweet $160. I don't think you will find a remote in this price range that is as flexible as the neo.

Personally, I can understand where your coming from Monte. Although the end result is WONDERFULL (it really is a nice remote), getting to that end result is an enormous pain unless you enjoy countless hours of "drawing" pages. Mainly because of poorly PC based tools IMO.

Philips could have made the process so much easier and they really screwed up bigtime. I do think, however, the neo's firmware is fine. On the other hand, the PC software is awful. I write firmware for a living, but dabble in PC apps on the rare occasion. NeoEdit, honestly, brings me back to the days of Win3.1 apps. It really doesn't follow the windows "standard" that everybody is used to and takes for granted. Philips should have hired a professional software developer to mold NeoEdit and they did not!

With that said, I can say with confidence that after you get the neo setup how you like it, then it's a pleasure to use and operate. You buy a pronto because you can customize the LCD to do what you want. Too bad they didn't plan out the tools as well as they did the hardware!

SCG

OK you two. It sounds great, but, when I upload from the NEO to PC it causes my computer to freak out & reboot. Who is going to figure that one out for me? I could spend hours on that alone. Then there is the firmware issue. There was a release just today of new Firmware v.2.0.3 by Philips. I don't know how to use it and I couldn't understand the Philips support person on the phone due to his thick accent. I tried to open both versions and they would cause my computer to get a Fatal Exception error and then the applications would disappear from my hard drive. How do you use this Firmware? Should I not open it? If someone can get me over these humps then I might agree with you. Thanks.

That's a windows related problem...not NEO. When you hit the "Upload"
button, RS-232 serial bytes are sent to\from the neo. If your PC is
crashing from this, you have some problems with the system.


Again, all the firmware upgrade utilities do is send rs-232 serial
data. Sounds PC related.

Sounds like all the problems you described are some strange problem
your having with serial devices on your PC. That's a tough problem to
troubleshoot. Only suggestion I have is to run a serial port monitor
and see if any bytes are actually getting sent. Otherwise, it's
probably one of those things that will likely require re-installation
of windows to solve for ya.

SEE! Re-install Windows!?!??!?!! A major pain in the ass! And just to START to use the software! While the system may technically be the culprit, the NEO is also guilty for requiring everything to be perfect. Other devices don't have as many hard to solve problems as this. That's why it just ain't worth it. Thanks anyway.

So your mad at the remote because your running a screwed version of windows? So if you get in your car and make a wrong turn I guess you blaim the car right!

You could always reinstall windows overtop your current windows, this way you don't lose any important stuff. This has worked for me when I had windows problems in the past. If your running win 98, system file checker is also a good tool. type sfc in the run box.

Yes RWI, I am mad at Philips. As I said, all the blame cannot be placed on Windows or other system issues when the NEO's software has a history of "not getting along" with systems. Also, my experience with other devices has never been this frustrating. Your car analogy was good, but if I were to turn the steering wheel in the correct direction and it took a wrong turn I would tend to blame the car. Here's my anaolgy. This NEO software is like a kid who acts up in class and really doesn't socialize well. In time, everybody knows this kid just causes problems everywhere he goes. I'd love to keep the NEO and I am trying in spite of what I said about returning it, but I am not making any ground and I am using July 4th to write this book (time consumption). I know it's my choice to waste time like this, but this has become a challenge now. RWI, if you have any suggestions or confirmations of the other people's help I would like to hear from you.

Monte, whats your system setup? Have you posted anyware as to the version of windows your using? The make of the PC, any other devices on the com ports? Remember, Windows only supports 2 com ports really. Have you looked in device manager?

Unless you find a remote that is USB, these problems are always going to happen with Com ports. Yes, it is both MS and Philips fauylt, as is everyone else that doesn't want a MAC! Buy a MAC, and there isn't hardware/software problems, it has to do with the open format of windows, and there is always going to be problems.

All youy can do is list everything there is about the com ports and maybe someone can help you..

-steve

Well I can't give you much help as far as the windows area of your problem as like allamand I to am a Mac user, as far as I have ever been told by windows people com problems are very popular due to so many different hardware/software configurations, on the mac side there is only one hardware manufacture so we face far less problems, If you were to post you system specs I am sure that the windows folks would be happy to help you figure this out. If I can get this thing to work on a mac running OSX emulating win 98 through a usb adaptor (we don't have serial ports) then I think almost anything is possible. Why they don't port these or any other devices to usb or even firewire I just will never understand (well I guess price but that is still not a good reason as most would be happy to pay a little more) and I agree the the software is lacking, but if you work through this you will like it in the end, your other route would be to upgrade to one of the big brother pronto's or even a marantz, but even they have their quirks. Good luck and if there is any non win related problems, post back and I'll try to help.

I actually havent had a problem with my remote. I was one of the first to get it, and was upset when I couldnt upload from the remote. That was my only complaint with the remote, and its been fixed. As for the software, there was a version that if I did things in a particular order after saving, closing, and reopening a file, it would crash. But even that has been fixed. I am pretty sure your OS is Win95, or Win98, and in all honesty, isnt the most stable platform to run 32 bit code on. I have run it on more than 6 physically different PCs, and have yet to have a reboot issue.

OK, here's my problem now and info on my system. Probably too mich info, but, I ain't no techie and I hope somebody out there is. My computer is getting aged as well...about 3.5 years old.

Problem: I have Windows 98 2nd Ed. I have 2 serial ports. My Palm connects to COM1 where I HOTSYNC the Palm and it has worked fine forever. COM2 has never really been used, but the Device Manager says it is working and there are no conflicts with COM1 or COM2. I am using NEOedit 2.0.5 and Firmware Update 2.0.3 (or some say it is really the 1.4.3 version). I forgot I had a second serial port, so, I first tried the NEO on COM1 by disconnecting the Palm. I did not uninstall the Palm or set it to COM2 or anything else...I just took its serial cable off. I tried the NEO on COM1 and it just would not connect via upload or download. I did not find the OPTIONS/CONNECTION in NEOedit yet. I did later as you will read.

After I realized that I had a COM2 I tried the NEO on that, but when I attempted to upload it NEOedit had a box that stated "Checking connected device" for about 15 seconds. Then NEOedit gave an error message: "Device not recognized. Check connection with device, reset the device, and try again." I really don't know how to fully check the connection, but just FYI BOTH COM1 & COM2 are ENABLED in the BIOS settings and as I stated earlier, the device manager claims they are working. I did reset the NEO and have tried several times with the same results.

Downloading from NEOedit would show a box that said "Saving" then "Translating" then "Downloading". That all took about 20-30 seconds and after that a NEOedit message stated "Trying to download into a device not designed for this configuration file." Then another box showed the "Download failed".

Then I found the TOOLS/CONNECTION in NEOedit's menu. When I selected the CONNECTION I goto the infamous Windows fatal exception OE blue screen. I return to Windows and it closes NEO edit. Also, when I go into Palm's software to change the local connection it immediatley bugs out to the very same fatal exception message as in the NEOedit procedure...exactly...with all the same addresses or codes or whatever all those numbers are.

Oh yeah, I moved the Palm back to COM1 where it syncs just fine. So, that is where I stand at this point. Follwing is a bunch of system info that I have no clue about 95% of it. If you need more let me know. Thanks a million!

System info:
Microsoft Windows 98 4.10.2222 A
Clean install using /T:C:\WININST0.400 /SrcDir=C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS /IS /IW /IQ /ID /IV /IZ /II /NR /II /C /U:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
IE 5 6.0.2600.0000
Uptime: 0:04:14:39
Normal mode
On "PAVILION" as "monti tate"
Hewlett-Packard
GenuineIntel x86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 1
127MB RAM
46% system resources free
Windows-managed swap file on drive C (22760MB free)
Available space on drive C: 22760MB of 29295MB (FAT32)
Available space on drive D: 42MB of 95MB (FAT)

Communications Port (COM1)
Ports
Alloc resources: Logical Configuration 0
IRQ: 4 Mask: x0000
IO Range: Base=x03F8 End=x03FF Alias=x00, Decode=x00
Driver: serialui.dll 4/23/1999 10:22 PM Size:12048 serial.vxd 4/23/1999 10:22 PM Size: 18625

Communications Port (COM2)
Ports
Alloc resources: Logical Configuration 0
IRQ: 3 Mask: x0000
IO Range: Base=x02F8 End=x02FF Alias=x00, Decode=x00
Driver: serialui.dll 4/23/1999 10:22 PM Size: 12048
serial.vxd 4/23/1999 10:22 PM Size: 18625

First check in the Windows Device manager and see what com port your modem is on, if using a modem, as that could be on com 2. If it is..

Try and change the Neoedit software Com Port settings another way. This isn't for the vain at heart, but is pretty easy to go. First go to your start menu and the choose "Run" type in "Regedit" and hit enter.

You need to go to this Key location:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Philips Electronics N.V.\NEOedit\2, 0, 5, 0\Settings

You will see a "Connection" on the right side of the list, 2nd one down maybe. That is either a 1 or a 2 depends on the com port.

To try and use Com 2 double click on it and change it to a 2 and then save and try and open NEoedit and see what happens.

Again, look first and see if the modem is using Com2 first!

-steve

Monte, if you try your NEO on COM1, you should exit the hotsync app. Since only one program can hold a COM port, the NEO software would not be able to access it since Hotsync loads with windows. Just a suggestion before you start dissecting your registry.