Bioequivalence and Bioavailability Forum

Dear all,

Recently I have been asked from a user of pcdcon about how to run pcdcon.exe, although I am not the original author of PCDCON (Dr. William R. Gillespie, Ph.D.). Then I accidentally find that pcdcon.exe is ONLY running under a 32-bit Win OS. I do not notice this before since I use a 32-bit Win OS for a long time until recently. Due to more and more PCs are 64-bit machines running with 64-bit Vista/Win7/Win8 (later) Win OS when they ship from PC manufactures, I like to explain how to run pcdcon.exe it if you have a 64-bit WIN OS here.

* Software and documents (ore ref.) you need

1. you can download PCDCON.ZIP from this Forum (read this thread carefully); Helmut post a very detailed and great comment for it.
   
2. Unzip the zip file to any directory or folder you like;
   
3. The zip file downloaded from this Forum contains complete files as original author provided many years ago, even including all Fortran source codes (how nice!)
   
4. If you need more details about PCDOCN, please read pcdcon.txt and *.pdf for examples bundled with PCDCON.ZIP. These are all original documents.
   
5. Just run pcdcon.exe under a dos-command window or the file manager of WINDOWS. No installation is required. Then you should place your data in the same directory/folder as pcdcon.exe for easy operation. To edit or view data file (ascii text file), any text editor will do, such as notepad.exe or wordpad.exe under Windows. Since pcdcon.exe is a dos-command line program, no menu or window-type GUI is provided at all.

* Hardware/Operation System (OS) required

any 32-bit or 64-bit PC as long as with a 32-bit Win OS.

* How do I know my Win OS is a 32-bit one? Very easy. Just run pcdcon.exe directly. If you get the error message such as '...this program is not compatible with Windows version... You will need a x86 (32 bits) or x64 (64 bits) program.. blablabla...' (I translated this from my Chinese Win OS; it should be something like that in English), then your Win OS is a 64-bit one. No doubt about it.

* How can I run pcdcon.exe with 64-bit Win OS or iMac (iOS) or Linux PC (such as Ubuntu)?

1. The most easy way is to borrow a 32-bit Win OS PC from a friend, if you just want to run pcdcon.exe for couple time only. If it can be done like that, ignore the following text.
   
2. If you will run pcdcon.exe for a long time, you may consider how to run it under a 64-bit Win OS PC. The most smart way is to install a virtual machine under a 64-bit Win OS. I will not recommend that you should re-install a 32-bit Win OS. After all, the 64-bit Win OS is much better than a 32-bit.
   
3. I prefer Oracle VM VirtualBox (VB) for virtual machine. It is totally freeware and very user-friendly. iOS/Linux PC (Ubuntu) machine is also able to install. Browse the website to see how to install VirtualBox and use it. Then You need to install a 32-bit WinXP/Vista/Win7 OS on VB. So you can run any 32-bit PC program from it.Note that you will need to know how to assess PC files or programs from VB. You can find it from VB user's guide. Read p.57-58 (Guest Additions for Windows). If you still don't know how to setup VB after reading VB user's guide, you can find great videos from Youtube. Here is a great one. Remember to expand your monitor as full screen for better view/effect. This one is English version. You may find a Spanish or quiet-mode (just sit and watch) version, if you like. YouTube searching keyword: 'virtualbox guest addition'.

Please post your question here if there is any question about how to run PCDCON and VB. Thanks and have a nice day.