Sick with the Flu over past 2 days so decided to attack setting up VIDA again.
Bought my Chinese cloned dice unit off Ebay 6 years ago and originally installed it on my original XP machine with relatively no problem as i recall it.
But in the following years windows and CPU were progressively upgraded and I could not easily reinstall it, always short of time to research and solve it and so abandoned the idea, leaving it for a rainy day and maybe a roadside find of an XP desktop with 2 GB memory so I could have a dedicated VIDA machine.
Also the Panasonic Toughbook CF18 that I had hoped to install it only had 1.5G ram and limited hard drive space so I had abandoned that idea as well, just using it to run VOL-FCR for my old v& FORSCAN for my ute
Anyway, after s**tloads of reading and research in between flu naps night and day I battled my way through the minefield of info and much trial and error got VIDA to work on a virtual machine (vmware) on my WIN10 desktop and also got it working perfectly on the old CF18 XPSP3 toughbook.
To get it working on the low spec toughbook (1.5G ram, 30GB free HD space) i had to modify the compinfo file located in the Install\DVD\DVDheader directoryof the DVD iso file. You need to mount and copy the ISO to be able to edit the file in notepad and then turn it back into an ISO and burn it or copy it or whatever, maybe just copy it in bits and pieces like I did using a couple of USB sticks to get it into my laptops hard drive and run the installation from there. You need to change the minimum requirements for ram and drivespace in the compinfo file, I changed mine to 500(MB) for ram and 50000MB for drivespace. This trick allows VIDA to install on a low spec computers. Anyway it worked, wished I'd known that 6 years ago. The same could be done for an old roadside find desktop that you could just leave setup in the garage. But a laptop, especially a cool little CF18 toughbook is far more convenient, especially if it has a good battery life like mine.
They are cheap on ebay - around $200 and some ppl actually sell them as a kit with DICE.
So on for the standard installation method that actually works:
Step 1: You need to do a clean install of Windows XP Pro SP3 on an old laptop or computer
OR Setup a Virtual machine on your Win7 of Win10 computer and run xp on that.
Step 2: On your clean or cleanish XPsp3 platform install:
Microsoft.net V2
Microsoft MSMXL6 (not service pack 2)
Microsoft SQL Server Express 2005
Step 3: Install VIDA 2012A from your DVD (My 2012B would not work so dont bother trying, 2012A has all I need)
Step 4: If all went well with the install you should restart tye computer and a little VIDA icon should appear in the taskbar bottom right of screen. But dont launch it yet!
Step 4: Run the patch directly onto C drive without following any directory path.
Step 5: The wind the year back on the computer to 2013 due to Vida 2012a licence expiring in 2017( if you use a virtual machine you have to do it every time before you log into vida)
Step 6: Plug in your Dice unit and allow windows to find it and load the drivers automatically. Then check its functionality by testing in the DICEdiag app that should have appeared on the desktop.
If Dice unit not connecting ; check the mini USB cables or swap with a new one. You will need to undo the plastic hex screw to remove the end cap of the dice unit to be able to access the mini usb port.
I had to test several different cables till I found one that works; the old one was just a sloppy fit so it was not making proper connection.
Step &: When the Dice unit lights up you might only see 2 lights. Some info on the net suggests that if the dice unit firmware status light is a constant red it may be faulty or may need new firmware update. My unit has a constant red light and its firmware is ancient but I had no problem connecting to dice or the car.
My advice is ignore that and if it works well who cares; I was almost about to buy a new unit and wasted an hour pulling mine apart to see if anything was burnt out.
Step 9: Go to the "Vida" folder on C drive and change the name of WSlogin.exe to WSlogin.exe-bak. That will stop the annoyance of VIDA trying to connect to Volvo every time you use it.
Step 10: When the Vida icon has gone from yellow to green you can launch Vida by right clicking the mouse over the icon which brings up a pop up menu to launch it.
Step 11: Use "1" for login and away you go.
Step 12: Once VIDA is running its up to you how you use it. You can manually input vin number or model number and search for parts diagrams and other info or you can hook up the dice unit to your car and run diagnostics. Its very important that you fill out all the info in the vehicle profile and select the correct Partner group (EUR/INT except Arabia, China) otherwise Diagnostics or spare parts searches will not work.
Step 13: If after setting up vehicle profile and trying to run diagnostics you may encounter an error screen that says "System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'System.Core, Version=3.5.0.0,
Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified" you need to exit VIDA and download microsoft dotnetfx35.exe and run that to fix the problem.