What, No Windows 10 Computer Interface?

Carl Schone (Virginia Beach) wrote to say that Scubapro's Galileo Luna Dive Computer would not work with Windows 10. He said that ScubaPro has not answered him as to whether they are going to accommodate an IR interface to their computers (the only way they can be updated or download dive profiles).

Gilbert deCoriolis, the Technical Director of Scubapro, told us that "since Windows 10 has been released, our customers using Windows 10 have an issue with the infrared (IrDA) communication between their dive computer and their PC. As a consequence, Galileo, Smart and Aladin/XP (round series) owners are not able to download their dive or adjust dive computers settings from either SmartTrak or LogTrak when using Win 10. This is a pure Microsoft issue."

deCoriolis says that Microsoft removed the socalled 'IrDA stack' from their operating system when they released Windows 10 and The SCUBAPRO USB Infrared (IrDA) Adapter IR778 stopped working. Even though the technical preview version from early 2015 did support IrDA communication, the released version didn't. They are working on a solution, but Microsoft is not providing needed technical information.

There is a solution. A 'Windows 10 Preview Insider Build 11082' is available, which supports IrDA again. It still uses the original driver of our IrDA device. Every Microsoft user can switch its system to the preview version. But since it is a preview, there might be bugs in, which Microsoft will fix before the final release. In general, we recommend waiting for the official Windows 10 update.

Other diving computer manufacturers have been hesitant to rush out interfacing software until they know the latest Microsoft OS is stable. This is the situation with four other major manufacturers of diving computers:

Suunto tells us that Download Manager 5 (DM5) works with Windows 10 and Mares, too, says its latest computers support Windows 10 connectivity. Cressi says it has been waiting for the bugs in Windows 10 to be sorted out, and so its computers don't integrate yet. Atomic is not ready for Windows 10, although a patch is expected soon.

- John Bantin