Run as administrator

I learned a lesson in Windows 8 this weekend I thought I would pass along. I have recently upgraded my astro laptop to an HP, Windows 8 touchscreen...I won't go into all the specs right now but so far I love it. That said I've been testing and configuring the new laptop at home over the last couple weeks getting it ready to take over as my main imaging computer, this is no small task. I literally have dozens of programs, drivers, plugins and settings to install and configure, here is the short list.

Photoshop, Maxim, TheSky 6, EQMOD, ASCOM, TeleApi, CCD Inspector, Astrometry, sBig, Orion starshoot, Carboni Tools, Pixinsight, Gradient Exterminator...and a few others I'm sure I'm not thinking of.

One of the stumbling blocks has been getting Maxim, theSky and EQMOD to talk with each other so that I can plate-solve and polar-align with a repeatable procedure, producing accurate results.

After some initial successes during testing, it became apparent during real time imaging runs that I was having issues. After some trail and error I then tried running both Maxim and TheSky 6 as the administrator (right mouse click, Run As Administrator) and eureka that one action fixed everything. I have since configured these programs to always run as admin when clicked on. Last night I had a solid 4 hours of imaging on the seagull here are the results.

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