Sorry... I was otherwise indisposed (I'll do a thread on it).

The security dongle was done away with (be grateful for that one). The release date of the announcement for Win 8 was 11/21, and you have a version from 11/13. Update your version (free) and you should be good to go.

You're almost there.

 

How do you go about updating? I bought mine in March 2012 but would like to update it to use on MY 12, 13 and 14 if I need to.

 

Contact AE support. My AE was like v5...then AE ran a upgrade special. For ~$150 I upgraded to v10?...I still have the security dongle though.

Good support I have found.

 

can we do an upgrade to get rid of that stupid security dingle?

 

So I will have to pay for an update? I thought it would be free? I just want to update and not upgrade.

 

Ain't no such thing as free lunch.....

 

Here's what they sent me:

 

Thanks for this thread, I have been wondering about my version for some time. I bought mine less than 2 years ago but the disc is PC version 9.11* 3-15-2011 and I have no "dongle", just the connector for the OBD port. Was I sold an outdated version
from the get-go? I am not much of a computer person so I don't know if got short changed or not. Can a simple update be had as mentioned above?
Mike

 

The security dongle is for the OBDII connector. To get rid of the dongle, you need new hardware... but check the website to be sure.

For software updates, start here: [LINK]

 

ok. but the older version i had did not have the security dingler and worked fine with OBDII units. i used to for 3 years on my 02 diesel, and also on the 2010 F550 diesel with no problems. the new version with the dingler is the one that has problems working.

 

I wanted to say thank you to Tugly for trying to help me get this figured out through PM's and phone calls.

 

For those who want to know what's happening with this, Windows 8.1 will not work with the AE hardware... it is not a software problem per se. There is no "cure" as of yet, so the only way to avoid this is to not update from 8.0 to 8.1... good luck with that.

We had to abandon the new laptop and we are streamlining his older computer to play nice with Windows 7 and AE. After all... this will be a troubleshooting tool, and fancy features do little more than get in the way. My AE "carputer" is a netbook with a lowly Atom processor, and AE performs no differently than it does on my i7 mega-laptop.

 

Again a big thank you again to Tugly for his help today. He spent at least 2 hrs on the phone with me today getting my old fossil laptop to get going and to connect to the truck. He is so knowledgeable with this stuff he was doing most by memory. My laptop will now be my dedicated truck computer. And he walked me through doing a buzz test and other info. I can't say thank you enough.

Gotta love the brotherhood on FTE!!!!!!!!

 

Firefighter 1406 did a great job of getting the "carputer" going, and he has already spotted a couple of easily-resolved issues that will help the economy and performance. His will be a great example of how much AE can help 7.3L Powerstroke owners... he'll get his money back in fuel savings alone.

 

I guess I'm confused?

Rich, are you saying that I should be able to run an update for Windows 8 and it will then work? Because when I talked to tech support the gentleman I talked to said the up-date wouldn't be out for another couple of weeks? My AE is only about four or five months old.