Taxc Fortius - warning! - do not buy

HighgateN6

Dear Users,

Do not buy the Taxc Fortius.....It is basically incompatible with Vista...

You will end up with and expensive bike holder..It is not just me there are other users on the Tax forum with the same problem..Fortius works once or a couple of times and then dies..Tax recommends uninstalling the software, but this is near impossible and you end up frustrated and you waste your time.

Also the machine when it worked when through one power brake motor and shorted the whole house..

I hate to say I wasted £700 on this rubbish.. The support is non existent only some fellow called Kit who is a techy and blames it all on Vista.

Be warned!

singlespeedexplosif

Well, 99% of people you speak to, whether working for Tacx, or having nothing whatsoever to do with cycling, will say it's Vista's fault. It's a cr0ck of sh1t. So many issues with so many different bits of software.

The Fortius, on the other hand, is a wonderful bit of kit.

davidmiller

Can't you get rid of Vista and go back to XP. At my company the iIT department have refused to install Vista. They're not daft!!

DM

neeb

Have to say I've been using my Fortius solidly for a year now and it's been absolutely great. I'm using XP though... Also, I only use the RLVs (real life videos). II thought tacx had now released drivers that worked with Vista?

The biggest problem with the fortius only affects users in the U.S., where the voltage of the mains supply is lower and not really sufficient to power the motorbrake.

pneumatic

Vista is incompatible with everything other than the Devil, whose spawn it is. It probably falls out with Auld Nick, too, whenever it gets the chance. :evil:

:evil: you have performed an illegal operation, old man!

inseine

I think that your heading is a bit strong. You make Tacx sound like a load of crap which it isn't. I'm surprised that Fortius doesn't work with Vista since i-magic runs fine, but that's a bummer and dealers should make it clear at the point of sale it it is the case.

Nuggs

Sounds like the thread ought to be aimed at Vista rather than the Tacx...

robbarker

WINDOWS VISTA WARNING - Do not buy!!!

redddraggon

Windows Vista is better than XP. I don't see what the issue is, I've never had any incompatibility issues.

I had to reinstall XP about every 8 - 12months to get it running smoothly again, but my current Vista install on my big box has been running since Vista came out - no slow down, no issues. XP wasn't that good.

DaSy

2 years of great service from my Fortius, I use all it functions (VR, RLV and Catalyst) and no issues running on XP. I run an IT department looking after hundreds of users and I wouldn't use Vista...

Brian1

I bought a Fortius in November last year and run Vista.I have to say it took me nearly a month to sort out all the bugs and anomalies but it has been running well since and I really love the RLVs.It does take persistence but it is a great piece of kit

Pat Murray

To the opening poster.

If its that bad I'll take it off your hands for £250.00!

Pirahna

Try this for the software:

Find the install executable, so look on the CD for something like setup.exe or install.exe.

Right mouse click on the file and choose properties.

When the properties window opens choose the Compatibility tab.

Tick the box that says "run this program in compatibility for"

Choose an OS from the drop down menu. If it won't work under the XP choice go for Windows 2000.

Click OK and run the setup by double clicking on the file.

If it works buy me a beer.

ride_whenever

^^^ my first try would be that, running the software in compatability mode.

are you on 32bit or 64bit?



Vista is poo, it is bloated and sluggish, even when optimised and benchmarks considerably lower than xp, but xp even beats windows 7, even with 7's multi-core support (which xp lacks)

dodgy

I'm using Vista here, no problems whatsoever. Just to add a bit of balance like

softlad

Have I wandered into 'techies anonymous' by mistake..?? :shock:

I thought this forum was about cycling..?

Pirahna

I'm running Vista at work but it's on a quad core processor with 4gb of memory. No issues whatsoever.

redddraggon

ride_whenever wrote:

Vista is poo, it is bloated and sluggish, even when optimised and benchmarks considerably lower than xp, but xp even beats windows 7, even with 7's multi-core support (which xp lacks)

There's wrong with Vista, there's only problems running Vista with the lower end equipment.

When I built my PC I had XP initially, and then swapped to Vista, doing benchmarks each time, and there was no noticeable difference. My current install of Vista has lasted 20months - not one of my XP installs on any computer lasted more than 12months before it became sluggish and needed reinstalling.

I actually noticed an increase of FPS on my most common software at the same settings when I went from XP to Vista. Those who bash Vista haven't really used it for any decent length of time or have tried to use it on crap equipment, I can understand companies not wanting to install Vista, if they've already got XP and don't want to go to the expense of buying hundreds of new licenses, have stupid employees that aren't properly IT competant and need to use poorly coded software (like this Tacx rubbish that started the thread). But for the home user, there's definitely nothing wrong with Vista.

The Fact is I've had less issues with Vista and so have most of my friends, and my install has lasted longer than XP ever did.

neeb

have stupid employees that aren't properly IT competant and need to use poorly coded software (like this Tacx rubbish that started the thread).

You obviously rate IT literacy higher than the sort that is measured by the ability to spell when it comes to assessing intelligence.... ( only kidding; actually I might not disagree with you on that count).

I can't claim to be excessively IT literate myself, but if the problems with Vista are down to poorly coded software then there does seem to be an awful lot of it around, and in the real world people need their software to work even if it is badly coded. I use all sorts of odd little bits of software I've picked up over the years because they are the only programs available to do the particular things I want to do, and I'm sure a large percentage of them must be badly coded (because they are written by people that know more about the things I want the programs to do than about programing itself). I need my OS to be able to cope with that, I can't find someone to re-write the programs if it doesn't!

redddraggon

neeb wrote:

have stupid employees that aren't properly IT competant and need to use poorly coded software (like this Tacx rubbish that started the thread).

You obviously rate IT literacy higher than the sort that is measured by the ability to spell when it comes to assessing intelligence.... ( only kidding; actually I might not disagree with you on that count).

Nope I can't spell very well, I used to Firefox with the spell checker, but I'm giving Opera a good go, and haven't got around to installing the dictonary yet...

DC Ayr

I use Vista with my Fortius and it works fine - just make sure that you have the latest versions of Tacx & Vista software standards loaded before you start digging deeper into the problem.

Martin Van Nostrand

Vista has gone the way of the dino anyway, MickeySoft is no longer developing it.

The New OS will be beta tested internally, instead of releasing and getting customers to beta test. MS tried to do this to save money, but ironically it ended up almost putting them out of business.

BTW: I run XP and Vista on several computers. Vista 64 dual blows everything away. the problem is that as OSs get more complex, the average computer user is getting less complex. People want computers to be toasters.

If Tacx says on the box that it runs in Vista, then it's Tacx's responsibility to make sure it runs in Vista.

doyler78

XP will not be around forever and Windows 7, the beta which I have got but haven't installed yet, is based on the same architecture as Vista therefore software vendors are going to have to get their acts together or they will not have a business. To blame Microsoft for the fact that a manufacturer still can't build Vista compliant software 2 years after its official release seems perverse to me.

I've been using Vista since it was released. My irda is the only device or software that I couldn't get to work and that is because infra-red is a largely redundant technology unfortunately Polar haven't cottoned on this fact yet however even Polar managed to release their own irda which was Vista compliant so I had to dual boot with XP for a time whilst Polar got their act together but get their act together they did.

If you can't get it work in Vista then you must complain to Tacx. Large volumes of complaints usually result in action.

Anonymous

Anyone who says XP is better than Vista are floating high in the sky I'm afraid.

Go try Windows 7, that is something that is better than Vista and XP.

Martin Van Nostrand wrote:

Vista has gone the way of the dino anyway, MickeySoft is no longer developing it.

The New OS will be beta tested internally, instead of releasing and getting customers to beta test. MS tried to do this to save money, but ironically it ended up almost putting them out of business.

BTW: I run XP and Vista on several computers. Vista 64 dual blows everything away. the problem is that as OSs get more complex, the average computer user is getting less complex. People want computers to be toasters.

If Tacx says on the box that it runs in Vista, then it's Tacx's responsibility to make sure it runs in Vista.

The new OS?

Windows 7? That is released to the public for beta test.

method

Back on topic....


I've been using Fortius and Vista for about 18 months and it works perfectly. Did you download the update drivers from Tacx?

pneumatic

redddraggon wrote:

ride_whenever wrote:

Vista is poo, it is bloated and sluggish, even when optimised and benchmarks considerably lower than xp, but xp even beats windows 7, even with 7's multi-core support (which xp lacks)

There's wrong with Vista, there's only problems running Vista with the lower end equipment.

When I built my PC I had XP initially, and then swapped to Vista, doing benchmarks each time, and there was no noticeable difference. My current install of Vista has lasted 20months - not one of my XP installs on any computer lasted more than 12months before it became sluggish and needed reinstalling.

I actually noticed an increase of FPS on my most common software at the same settings when I went from XP to Vista. Those who bash Vista haven't really used it for any decent length of time or have tried to use it on crap equipment, I can understand companies not wanting to install Vista, if they've already got XP and don't want to go to the expense of buying hundreds of new licenses, have stupid employees that aren't properly IT competant and need to use poorly coded software (like this Tacx rubbish that started the thread). But for the home user, there's definitely nothing wrong with Vista.

The Fact is I've had less issues with Vista and so have most of my friends, and my install has lasted longer than XP ever did.

Hang on a minute! Isn't the above a bit like saying that there's nothing wrong with a Trabant car, just the ignorant drivers who know nothing about car maintenance.

If I buy a laptop, it is so that I can USE it to do things with (writing, presentations, photos, music, databases, accounts, web browsing etc..) not so I can spend hours and hours learning how to fix the bl00dy thing.

Since I got the machine I am currently working on, I have lost half the functionality of my PDA synch, the use of my wireless router, the link with my mobile phone, and access to several pieces of software that I used to rely on to do handy little jobs. And the effing thing takes longer to boot up and close down than the old XP laptop I gave up for it.

I put all my woes to a professor of Computer Science. He pulled out of his bag his own laptop. It starts upon opening the lid and stops when it is closed. It cloned itself from his previous machine in a couple of hours, by itself, while he was having lunch with a colleague. Guess what? It is a MAC. That's where I'm going next time around.

All I want is a tool to do some jobs with, not a PhD in electronics and software engineering and six months of anger management. :twisted: :twisted:

redddraggon

If I buy a laptop, it is so that I can USE it to do things with (writing, presentations, photos, music, databases, accounts, web browsing etc..) not so I can spend hours and hours learning how to fix the bl00dy thing.

My Vista laptop worked straight out of the box.

I've never had any issues and I've never had to fix anything, and its just worked.

I've had no compatibility issues whatsoever.

pneumatic

Outlook failed to start correctly last time. Would you like to start it in safe mode so Windows can diagnose and repair the fault?

I get this every time I switch it on. Apparently, according to numeous geekradar fora that I have visited this has something to do with an incompatible .dll file. All I have to do is isolate it and that'll be me sorted. But how many .dll files are there on my hard drive, to the nearest ten thousand??? :twisted:

Windows could not connect to the network due to a timeout error. Please contact your network administrator

I could go on, but my blood pressure won't take it.

I am pleased for you, Red, really I am. I've never been mugged (except by Microsoft) but that doesn't mean I don't believe in crime.

doyler78

So the fact that some piece of software or hardware that you have on your pc has loaded an incompatible dll file onto your pc is Microsoft's fault? Perhaps its the fault of the software vendor!

Timeouts are usually network errors and that is probably down to your network device ie router or whatever device you use to connect to the internet. I would check for updated drivers or new firmware. I think this is unlikely to be the operating system therefore I'll not blame Microsoft on this one either.

Seems to me that there is a common misconception that somehow the pc that you use is substantially a Microsoft product. It just isn't true. Most of the hardware on it, if not all, will be non Microsoft products therefore it for those hardware vendors to build compatible drivers in order for the devices to work properly.

I'm not saying Vista is perfect however I think the vast majority of the problems can no longer be blamed on the operating system but on the hardware and software we are using and the dodgy drivers that are being provided with. Really 2 years after Vista's launch and we still have some manufactuers who can't manage to build Vista complaint devices or software. Well their loss because things are not going back.

redddraggon

doyler78 wrote:

So the fact that some piece of software or hardware that you have on your pc has loaded an incompatible dll file onto your pc is Microsoft's fault? Perhaps its the fault of the software vendor!

Outlook is Microsoft BTW

doyler78

redddraggon wrote:

doyler78 wrote:

So the fact that some piece of software or hardware that you have on your pc has loaded an incompatible dll file onto your pc is Microsoft's fault? Perhaps its the fault of the software vendor!

Outlook is Microsoft BTW

I know however he said the advice on forums suggested that an incompatible dll was what was causing Outlook not to function. Its not likely to be an Outlook dll or we'd all be experiencing problems (though it could be a corrupt dll but then Outlook is pretty good a repairing problems when loading). That leaves me to conclude that the more likely cause is another piece of software (either driver pack or application) that loaded an incompatible dll onto the system.