Big update coming this week

[DAVe3283]

We've had a number of requests for people to be able to enter in their own segment part numbers, that is something we will try to do for V8.
If you search back far enough on this forum you will find the reason the CVN change was removed

That would be nice!

Would it be possible for the program to have a list of all the "stock" CVN's, and let the user change it to anything except those? Then there would be no warranty/emissions concerns, but still can track the version. Or, let the user enter the last digits of the CVN, and have the program force the first digit or two to something that is not used by the factory? Just throwing ideas out, don't know if they are feasible.

So what version number was that feature it enabled on ??

They removed the ability to customize the CVN from 7.5.5 Build 81 and later.

[GMPX]

You can imagine the logistics of us having to keep track of every CVN out there, sorry, but it's not going to happen, it's gone. The unfortunate part is it was removed after the actions of another company in the automotive after market (or so we were told), I guess they couldn't figure out how to do it so they wanted to stop us.

[Chalky]

Any news on the pending update for EFiLive?

[GMPX]

Poor Paul, he spent most of the week totally changing the directory structures of V8 after the problems we had with WinXP, this wasn't a trivial thing and required a lot more testing (for all Windows versions). Then in the final hours during the testing on Friday we struck a really weird problem where the E37 ECM would read fine in Win7, but not XP which was very odd because V7 has been working fine with the E37.
Paul got that problem figured out yesterday (Sat arvo NZ time), so given he's allowed one day off a week I suppose we will say it will be released Monday our time.
This release will only have reading, writing will be released shortly after (like the end of the week) when it looks like there is no immediate issues at hand with V8. We don't expect any drama's but it will help minimise support if we release in sections.

[L31Sleeper]

The unfortunate part is it was removed after the actions of another company in the automotive after market (or so we were told), I guess they couldn't figure out how to do it so they wanted to stop us.

Are you referring to the original CVN changing issue or the new V8 segment changing ?

What company I'll send "the boys" to take care of them !!!

[DAVe3283]

You can imagine the logistics of us having to keep track of every CVN out there, sorry, but it's not going to happen, it's gone. The unfortunate part is it was removed after the actions of another company in the automotive after market (or so we were told), I guess they couldn't figure out how to do it so they wanted to stop us.

Yeah, it would be prohibitive to keep track of all the CVN's, oh well.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but since it is a checksum, don't you simply alter the "unused" data in the tune (normally all 1's or all 0's) until the CVN is what you want? That's how you alter the checksum of normal ROM files, I assume the ECU ROMs are the same... If that's all there is to it, seems the other company didn't really have a clue, lol. Too bad your V8 tunes are encrypted, otherwise I could probably write a C++ application to set the CVN. Hmmm....

Oh well, that's life, and the CVN is not exactly a critical feature on an otherwise AMAZING tuning tool.

[L31Sleeper]

I'm starting to think that "secretly" Developing the software and releasing it when it's done might be the way to go?

[GMPX]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but since it is a checksum, don't you simply alter the "unused" data in the tune (normally all 1's or all 0's) until the CVN is what you want? That's how you alter the checksum of normal ROM files, I assume the ECU ROMs are the same... If that's all there is to it, seems the other company didn't really have a clue, lol. Too bad your V8 tunes are encrypted, otherwise I could probably write a C++ application to set the CVN. Hmmm....

A CVN is not calculated by a simple adding checksum. Eg, if you add one to the data, take one from the checksum. It uses CRC instead, a little bit trickier to fool, near on impossible in the Bosch ECM because of the layout of the segments.

I'm starting to think that "secretly" Developing the software and releasing it when it's done might be the way to go?

We tend to do that, but honestly we were so close to release state a few weeks back we thought we would announce something, oh well, if you have even been involved in software development you know how things can turn bad on the 11th hour! We certainly never planned on having to totally redo the directory structures of the software, you can imagine there is a lot of changes that need to be done to account for that. What a shame M$ never stuck to any sort of standard.

Cheers,
Ross

[DAVe3283]

A CVN is not calculated by a simple adding checksum. Eg, if you add one to the data, take one from the checksum. It uses CRC instead, a little bit trickier to fool, near on impossible in the Bosch ECM because of the layout of the segments.

Aah, I didn't realize it was a CRC. That would be a bit harder to fool than a simple checksum. Also, without knowing how the ECM does the segmentation, I suppose I couldn't really write a CVN tool. Drat. There's no chance the source code for changing the CVN would ever "mysteriously" leak out, is there? Lol, I can dream, right?

We tend to do that, but honestly we were so close to release state a few weeks back we thought we would announce something, oh well, if you have even been involved in software development you know how things can turn bad on the 11th hour! We certainly never planned on having to totally redo the directory structures of the software, you can imagine there is a lot of changes that need to be done to account for that. What a shame M$ never stuck to any sort of standard.

I know what you mean about things going wrong at the last second. Hopefully Microsoft will stick with the directory structure they use in Vista & 7. It would make life a lot easier in the future.

Too bad you couldn't just drop XP support for the V8 software. Although you'd probably make a lot of people very unhappy, the operating system is over 9 YEARS old. Heck, I don't support windows XP in 50% of my programs anymore, it's just too much of a hassle. Unless a customer specifically asks for it, I don't bother.

Oh, and sorry if we're bugging you guys, we're just excited about the new version!

[GMPX]

Too bad you couldn't just drop XP support for the V8 software. Although you'd probably make a lot of people very unhappy, the operating system is over 9 YEARS old.

That might be true, but I still run XP on my development PC, some old software just doesn't run on anything later and I don't see why I would pay for an upgrade that does when the one I have is fine.
Abandoning Win98 I can understand, but not XP (yet!).

Cheers,
Ross