AWhere, Inc.

When I try to turn on the Virtual Earth Add-In in AWhere, it does not start up.  I get a message in the AWhere map window telling me that Virtual Earth cannot be started.  Can someone provide instructions on how to get it working?

 Thanks

This is very likely a firewall issue, and usually easily resolved...you simply need to tell your firewall to 'allow' the Virtual Earth add-in's .dll (in other words, designate it as an 'exception' in your firewall's settings).

 Here are the instructions on how to do that in Windows XP (these steps might differ slightly in other versions of Windows):

1. Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel
2. From the Control Panel, select 'Security Center'
3. In the Security Center window, click on the 'Windows Firewall' link below where it says "Manage Security Settings for:"
4. In the Windows Firewall window that appears, click on the 'Exceptions' tab and scroll through the list of Programs and Services that are listed; look for an item named 'AwVEAddIn38.dll' (or it might also be called "AWhere Virtual Earth Add In 3.8" or some iteration of that); and make sure it is checked. (If you found it listed, skip steps 5 and 6 below and go straight to step 7...if you did not find it listed, complete steps 5 and 6)
5. If you do not find either of the two items mentioned in the above step, you will need to add it to this list of Programs and Services.  To do that, click on the 'Add Program' button, and in the 'Add a Program' window that appears, browse to the installation location of the Virtual Earth Add-in under the main AWhere installation directory (if you installed AWhere at the default installation location, that will be C:\Program Files\AWhere\AWhere SIS 3.8\Add Ins\Virtual Earth 3.8).  
6. At that location, select the file named 'AwVEAddIn38.dll' (if you cannot see it, make sure that "All Files (*.*)" is selected for the 'Files of Type' option below.  Click the 'Open' button on the 'Browse' window, and then click on the 'OK' button on the "Add a Program" window.
7. Click 'OK' on the Windows Firewall window and you are done. 

 If AWhere has been open while you edited this firewall setting, you will probably need to close down AWhere completely and re-start AWhere before it will take effect.

Microsoft Windows LiveOneCare users

If you use MS Windows LiveOneCare as your computer's security package, and the above instructions did not resolve the issue, you might also want to make sure that the Virtual Earth .dll is set to be 'allowed' through.  To do that:

1. Open the main Windows LiveOneCare window, and click on the 'Change Settings' link on the left to open the Settings window.
2. On the 'Firewall' tab, click on the 'Advanced Settings' button.
3. Scroll through the list of Programs, looking for "AWhere Virtual Earth Add-In 3.8", and if you find it, make sure it is set to "Allow" (not "Block").
4. If you do not find it listed, use the same instructions as shown in steps 5 and 6 above to add the Virtual Earth .dll file to this list of Programs.

For any of you using Windows XP Home edition, you should use the above 'Firewall settings' instructions to make sure the VE .dll is allowed, but also, you will likely have another issue unique to the XP Home edition OS...that of a different .dll (a file named 'msvcp71.dll') missing from the Windows/System32 folder.  So, if the above Firewall settings do not fix your Virtual Earth issue...do this:

1. Go to http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?msvcp71 (if this page is no longer active when you try this...you might just do an internet search to try to find another location from which you can download this .dll file)
2. Click to download the msvcp71.dll file from that website.
3. Save it to your System32 folder (C:\WINDOWS\system32)...(be sure to unzip it to that location).

That should fix the VE issue with an XP Home edition system...though if it doesn't fix the problem immediately, try closing and re-starting AWhere, and if that doesn't work, re-boot your system.