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Old 06-06-2017, 08:08 PM
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Graham Graham is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Ontario, Canada
Posts: 4,393
Quote:
Originally Posted by VT220D View Post
Like many others I went with the ebay VM version of the EPC. I also have the BMW VM which covers motorcycles in case that interests anyone.

I have all the service manuals too. Those were a constant source of trouble with every update. I use Firefox ESR to slow the pace of change but 95% of my computer problems come with an update. A windows update glitch last year caused all the machines I maintain to run at over 50% cpu continuously. For months this continued without any solution except to turn off updates - not safe. The last straw for me was having to download the local service manual PDFs every time I opened a section of the service manual. I've dealt with this several times before by changing security settings but this time nothing worked. All I wanted was to view the PDF in a browser window and not open Adobe reader or download a PDF from my own C drive.

My solution was a used 5 year old Panasonic Tough-book CF-31 core I5 8gb running Win7. I added the Mercedes and BMW VMs and an old version of Firefox that restored the desired service manual behavior. To prevent any updates to the machine under advanced settings for the Ethernet adapter I removed IPV6 and edited IPV4 to a fixed address with no gateway. That way the machine can communicate with local network resources like my printer and NAS but it can't connect to the internet. It's set to not share with other machines on the network.

VMs can also be prevented from connecting to the internet either by disabling the network bridge inside the VM settings or disabling the Ethernet adapter inside the guest OS. The Mercedes EPC wants an internet connection so the above won't work. To get around this in XP's control panel set the Ethernet adapter to a fixed address with no gateway (like I did for the Win 7 host). The EPC will think it has an internet connection but XP will be prevented from communicating with the outside world. The BMW software worked fine by simply disabling the Ethernet adapter.

I also added an Ubuntu VM for internet access. In this case I left the Ethernet settings alone and allowed the VM to bridge to the host Ethernet adapter. This gives the Ubuntu VM internet access but the host still has no access beyond my local network. I can open all the VMs at once without slowing the system.

The result is the windows 7 host can have all the programs I need with access to printing and shared resources but without internet access and therefore no updates. The BMW and EPC XP VMs have no internet access while the Ubuntu VM has full internet access for browsing. I turn it on every day and it just works.

The Toughbook is about as rugged a laptop as you can get. It's perfect for bringing out to the garage. It has a super bright screen that can be viewed in direct sunlight. It has water resistance and can be dropped on cement from 6 feet without damage.

I leave it docked most of the time and use it via remote desktop. I get all my favorite software configured how I like it and I don't have to go through hours of troubleshooting after every update just to get back to where I started! Also the CF-31 is in current production with updated internals and full accessory compatibility with older models so in five years when the new ones are retired I'll get another one and lock it down like this one.

BTW: I was able to edit the matrix.swf files to get rid of the annoying engine sound at launch. I still want to fix the loading delay for the year buttons. If anyone has a fix for that I'd love to hear it. 85 seems to take forever and I'm sure it looked slick the first time but it gets old! I'd also like to edit the matrix to eliminate the Disk 1/2 split.
So there you have it guys - piece of cake
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Graham
85 300D,72 350SL, 98 E320, Outback 2.5
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