A toast to PGGB, a heady brew of math and magic

[austinpop]

38 minutes ago, edwardsean said:

I don’t know if this was addressed before, but do those of you using Dave, engage its HF filter with PGGB 16fs files?

 

I had it turned off as I assumed it wasn’t necessary since PGGB has its own HF filter. However, I’ve been experimenting and enabling it has a positive effect. To my ears, it seems to be cleaning up some out of band noise coming from somewhere. 

 

I personally prefer it Off, while setting PGGB's HF Noise Filter = Minimal. 

 

YMMV, of course.

[happybob]

34 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

I personally prefer it Off, while setting PGGB's HF Noise Filter = Minimal. 

 

YMMV, of course.

I do the same, Dave HF filter off, PGGB noise filter at minimum. As a side note I also leave off the Dave “crossfeed” settings for headphone use as they significantly negatively  impact sound quality from my perspective.

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

8 hours ago, edwardsean said:

I don’t know if this was addressed before, but do those of you using Dave, engage its HF filter with PGGB 16fs files?

 

I had it turned off as I assumed it wasn’t necessary since PGGB has its own HF filter. However, I’ve been experimenting and enabling it has a positive effect. To my ears, it seems to be cleaning up some out of band noise coming from somewhere. 

Yes leave the HF filter off on DAVE as the HF filtering is already done by PGGB and any additional filtering by DAVE will negatively impact SQ.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Guys, this thread was sent to me at the tail end of my vacation and I put off digging into it until this morning. 

 

It's not possible to re-read everything and understand the context and intricacies of every post and personal relationship each person may have with others (Sandy K and other people used to rail against each other, but all were OK with it and on the same page, but I removed posts a few times because I didn't understand what was going on. Again, context.), so I will need assistance in the thread cleanup if necessary. 

 

Regardless, let's keep it civil, enjoyable, and always remember everyone can open their own threads to continue a discussion that may not belong in this thread. 

 

Last, I can't recommend strongly enough that manufacturers, developers, etc... tread extremely lightly when discussing others' products. As a global site, I know there are many different norms at play in every thread and what's acceptable to some will be absolutely unacceptable to others. Everyone likes when two manufacturers talk and figure out someone's issue, like Ayre and Aurender have done in the Aurender thread, but when the conversation goes the other way and there are disagreements about what's right / wrong or good / bad, it gets really ugly really quick. 

 

My general "rule" is that representatives of products tread lightly when mentioning other products. I hate hard and fast rules disallowing this because we all have brains and can use judgement, so I won't implement a bright line rule. Keep in mind that talking negatively about another product almost always backfires, no matter if what's said is true or false. As in life, it's often not what is said, but how it's said and where it's said.

[mcewan71]

A belated brief word to say thanks to those who had responded to my post from about a week ago. I appreciate your responses @Kalpesh @austinpop @Zaphod Beeblebrox and @kennyb123 - they've been helpful and so I've moved things forward slightly. I've bought a Chord Mojo - which is realistically the only Chord I can afford at this time, and over the weekend got 4 short tracks processed via https://pggb.io/ which has helped me look further at this. The Chord is certainly a great use for my cash so far! 

 

Living rurally in the Scottish Borders as I do, our internet bandwidth here is way beyond poor (15 gbps DL on a good day) - which has tended to seriously limit any streaming consumption (I had to use very small files for PGGB IO as the upload kept timing out, for starters!). I mention this because for now my PGGB'd files would need really to be either local on my PC (using JRiver possibly - I did have Roon but it's not ideal for bandwidth-challenged folks like me, though Jriver I'm sure would be the same), or, on my ipad with Mojo/headphones. So, though the Mojo can handle 32/768 or so, I found only one ios software which can handle these rates - Kaisertone. It sounds ok but I'm not a huge fan of its' basic sound signature. The one I prefer is iAudiogate (designed to accompany Korg DACs) because I prefer the sound and yes, the UI (so shallow...!) but it only handles 24/192 PCM, though does work with higher DSD rates. Shame - I'm no expert as you know, but there seems fairly limited reason to process files to the max the Mojo can carry to then downsample via the software. 

 

Still, I've confirmed my PC can definitely still handle the specs required, so if do decide to pull the trigger on a licence, we're good to go! And hopefully sometime this year our bandwidth is scheduled to hit the dizzy heights of 30 gbps (which the Scottish Government excitedly classes as 'superfast'...)

 

Anyhow, thanks again for all the advice and help. As I say, they were much appreciated. 

[seeteeyou]

On 1/10/2022 at 2:12 AM, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

Offline processing at higher rates does come with a storage cost and it may not be for everyone. There is also the option for close to real-time processing using PGGB, for now it is available as a foobar-plugin and hopefully we could expand to other players when time allows.

 

FYI - this was posted before the recent turmoil kicked in (January 6th / 7th depending on the time zone) and foobar2000 turned out to be the winner once we've got the total number of processes under Win10XPE *WAY* down to 12 or so

 

https://jplay.eu/forum/index.php?/topic/4410-windows-11-pe-audiophile-creation-guide/?p=58068

Quote

Now I can say without any doubt that F2K is on Win 10-11 XPE, well above both HQP (3x and 4x versions) and JRMC 26 (the last one I have registered) and WTFPlay 0.75.
 It is a shame to see that, after spending a few €, 2 totally free applications are far superior to the paid ones.
 
Right now F2K and Infinity Blade are far superior. Comparing HQP (WinServCore2019 RAMDISK) against HQP (Win10-11XPE) the latter is clearly superior, the same goes for JRMC26, it sounds much better on Win10-11XPE, but both clearly worse than F2K.

 

Here's yet another thread that should be started back in 2009 and once again foobar2000 was doing well under Windows PE 

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=8705+PE+site%3Aerji.net

Quote

根据感人程度，SAW理论上可能会更自然和贴近原声。 看来SAW确实有一套。当然，还没有在WINPE下比较过，因为PE下FOOBAR会改善不少。

 

And then don't forget about giving this a try

 

https://sourceforge.net/projects/foobar2000-wasap2-output/files/

Quote

An alternative to the official wasapi and Asio foobar2000 output component:
WASAPI output Support 3.2.3
ASIO output Support 2.1.2
with a special effort to improve audio quality

 

Obviously foobar2000 already sounded terrific despite the fact that PGGB-RT wasn't even involved at all, let's just imagine what we could achieve with both of them. Sometimes we don't have to write something off just because it's completely free IMHO.

 

BTW, we could find quite a few interesting foobar2000 components here

 

https://www.foobar2000.org/components/author/Peter

 

Here's a quote from Rajiv

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/62699-a-toast-to-pggb-a-heady-brew-of-math-and-magic/page/11/#comment-1130123  

On 5/6/2021 at 4:15 AM, austinpop said:

Listening Impressions

I so very much wanted the wavpack files to sound the same as wav! But alas, I do hear a difference. Is it huge? No, and it still preserves most of the goodness PGGB brings. But if ultimate SQ is what you're going for, stick with WAV. If, on the other hand, storage is holding you back, then wavpack (and the already supported FLAC) could be a very good option.

 

For those of us who already converted lots of tracks into that WavPack container with PGGB Offline, both "Command-Line Decoder Wrapper" and "FFmpeg Decoder Wrapper" seemed to have some potential in terms of decoding to temporary files

 

https://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Components_0.9/foo_input_exe

Quote

When decoding to temporary files (%d): Because the whole file is decoded in advance, this component stalls for a while before playback of each file can begin. To avoid playback interruptions when changing songs, you might want to increase your playback buffer length (in Preferences / Playback / Output).

 

Quote

For any format supported by FFmpeg, decode whole file first (slower): ffmpeg -i %s %d

 

Yet another one that's also useful for playlists, maybe we could add plenty of RAM and disconnect the network connection to NAS then?

 

https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_ramdisk

Quote

Creates temporary copies of a group of tracks - for an example, your playlist - in application's memory. Temporary copies exist only during the application lifetime.

Usage: right-click a group of tracks, use "Send to RAM-Disk" or "Add to RAM-Disk" commands from the "Utilities" sub-menu.

 

So there we have it, Win10XPE is free. ISO images of Windows 11 also don't cost anything at all. Same deal with foobar2000, while the trial mode of PGGB-RT could go up to 2 million taps.

[Peti]

Glad to see the drama is through. I have thoroughly enjoyed my one month trial with PGGB and my only gripe is that I could not convert some of my audio files that are rather large in length (over 25 mins). I also remain a happy HQP user if I don't use my Chord dac but the other one, Sabre-based dac in my possession.

 

I wonder if someone could help me to process a couple of rather long tracks via PGGB 32/768 if I send him the original files? It's weird to listen to the whole album in 32/768 and then when the last long song comes that gets played back 16/44.1.

[kennyb123]

13 hours ago, mcewan71 said:

I’ve bought a Chord Mojo - which is realistically the only Chord I can afford at this time, and over the weekend got 4 short tracks processed via https://pggb.io/ which has helped me look further at this. The Chord is certainly a great use for my cash so far! 

The Mojo delivers a huge bang for the buck.  To get to 768K you could add a Poly or a number of streamers.  I just recently got that working myself with a Poly playing PGGB’d tracks off an SD card and the sound quality is insane for the price.

[kennyb123]

7 hours ago, Peti said:

I wonder if someone could help me to process a couple of rather long tracks via PGGB 32/768 if I send him the original files? It's weird to listen to the whole album in 32/768 and then when the last long song comes that gets played back 16/44.1.

Sure send me a PM. As an FYI, I believe you might have to been able to process those long tracks by reducing max taps.  

[mcewan71]

4 hours ago, kennyb123 said:

The Mojo delivers a huge bang for the buck.  To get to 768K you could add a Poly or a number of streamers.  I just recently got that working myself with a Poly playing PGGB’d tracks off an SD card and the sound quality is insane for the price.

 

Thanks @kennyb123! I may well investigate this, so thanks for the tip. I would imagine you use an enormous SD card (I think they max out at 1TB?) - so far, I can't see whether local playback of WavPack through the Poly is possible: can you confirm? Thanks again!

[kennyb123]

4 hours ago, mcewan71 said:

 

Thanks @kennyb123! I may well investigate this, so thanks for the tip. I would imagine you use an enormous SD card (I think they max out at 1TB?) - so far, I can't see whether local playback of WavPack through the Poly is possible: can you confirm? Thanks again!

Correction:  I should have said Micro SD card.  I have a few of these leftover from my previous mobile device, a Pono.  I intend to buy a few more of these.  

 

I can't imagine that the Poly supports WavPack as it's running an older version of MPD.  I've yet to have much success with WavPack.

 

I'm not sure how much you plan to use your Mojo on the go vs having it set in a stationary position, but if the latter is the plan, there are some streaming endpoints that might server you better.  A microRendu was something I used with a Mojo a while back and it worked really well.  Not sure about the current market for such devices and which support 16 FS though.

[seeteeyou]

FYI - WavPack support was added to MPD since December 2008 (Christmas gift?)

 

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MusicPlayerDaemon/MPD/master/NEWS

ver 0.14 (2008/12/25)
* decoders:
  - ffmpeg: new plugin
  - wavpack: new plugin

 

---

 

BTW, here's the feedback from another user of PGGB and I'm also enjoying HiBy RS6 (R2R DAC with NOS mode) as my portable rig

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hiby-rs6-next-generation-hi-res-android-music-player.958878/page-85#post-16659926

Quote

RS6 supports 2xDXD, which is crazy! I did not try 32bit DXD, and all files were 24 bit, but if you really have a favourite album and you want to hear what it is capable of, try upsampling it and feeding it to your RS6, you never know what you might hear!

I also tried DSD256 vs 2xDXD, I like 2xDXD more, treble was much better presented in DXD file, compared to DSD256 which sounded muffled.

It is fair to say this is the first time I've heard 2xDXD on a portable setup, colour me impressed!

 

Not exactly related to PGGB but it's just really awesome to have so much fun with R2R on the road

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hiby-rs6-next-generation-hi-res-android-music-player.958878/page-122#post-16758501

Quote

Paired with a dynamic and neutral monitor like IEM like the Softears RSV it can shake some pants. It feels like a massive club PA speaker system, punching and growling in an all encompassing soundfield.

My RME ADI 2 can't match its massive wall of sound.

Embrace the boogie. It reminds me of my dad's old school marantz system with celestion Ditton 44 speakers that used to rattle our house windows.

 

[mcewan71]

4 hours ago, kennyb123 said:

Correction:  I should have said Micro SD card.  I have a few of these leftover from my previous mobile device, a Pono.  I intend to buy a few more of these.  

 

I can't imagine that the Poly supports WavPack as it's running an older version of MPD.  I've yet to have much success with WavPack.

 

I'm not sure how much you plan to use your Mojo on the go vs having it set in a stationary position, but if the latter is the plan, there are some streaming endpoints that might server you better.  A microRendu was something I used with a Mojo a while back and it worked really well.  Not sure about the current market for such devices and which support 16 FS though.

 

Thanks Kenny. I have a fleet of Raspberry Pi devices as budget streamers and they are great for what they do - which is multi-room playback using Volumio OS. The most I can get using an optical 'hat' on this device is 192 out into the Mojo, so that's a bit of a limitation. I'll keep the Mojo as a portable device mainly for headphones. But thanks for the Poly tip! Which software do you use to play local micro SD card files on your Mojo? 

[Kalpesh]

raw data : of the 8 non classical music albums I have PGGBed with success, that is offering the most pleasant experience PGGBed 352.8/64 b f/Maximum transparency/no apodizing, 4 are listed in https://www.digido.com/honor-roll/ : I still believe that with ancient ADC/Digital recorders it brings upsampling/remastering benefits that overwhelm whatever limitations Rob Watts or Jussi Laakso have pointed.

If someone asks I will specify said albums... In classical music Philips DDD 80's recordings by Arrau and Richter account for almost half of the successfully PGGBed albums. 1979 1982 brackets most of the successfully PGGBed albums. Interestingly enough, PGGB is a liability with a 1984 DDD Arrau recorded in NY while the rest is recorded in Europe

 

My trial period ends this week-end : if anyone has a suggestion, now is the time !

 

I want to thank the author and everybody involved for allowing me to better enjoy a handful of albums and understand the enthusiasm when the idiosyncrasies of the DAC allows PGGB to make the positive difference with all albums

[kennyb123]

On 1/11/2022 at 2:47 PM, mcewan71 said:

But thanks for the Poly tip! Which software do you use to play local micro SD card files on your Mojo? 

I’ve been using an iOS app called Glider.  It’s pretty basic but gets the job done well enough.

[muski]

On 1/11/2022 at 2:47 PM, mcewan71 said:

Which software do you use to play local micro SD card files on your Mojo? 

I’ve also been playing PGGB’ed files on my Mojopoly when traveling. Sounds is superb (sometimes staggeringly so) for such a tiny device. It’s an ideal use case for PGGB. (I’m still mScaler/DAVE at home). Shame Hugo 2/2Go is such a train wreck as I bet that would be an ever more compelling solution with PGGB files from the SD card.

 

I’ve tried a bunch of iOS apps including Glider, but my two favorites are mConnect and MPDluxe. mConnect has a decent UI and support for Qobuz and TIDAL, while the MPDluxe UI is a very clunky. However, from my experiments it seems that mConnect is playing over the network, while MPDluxe is doing local playback. If I kill the mConnect iOS app while music is playing, it stops. Not so with MPDluxe. (To be fair, it’s been a few years since I tried Glider).

 

One cool thing about mConnect is that I can use my Mojopoly as a UPnP media server for my Sonos speakers :)

 

cheers,

muski

[edwardsean]

3 hours ago, muski said:

I’ve also been playing PGGB’ed files on my Mojopoly when traveling. Sounds is superb (sometimes staggeringly so) for such a tiny device. It’s an ideal use case for PGGB. (I’m still mScaler/DAVE at home). Shame Hugo 2/2Go is such a train wreck as I bet that would be an ever more compelling solution with PGGB files from the SD card.

 

I’ve tried a bunch of iOS apps including Glider, but my two favorites are mConnect and MPDluxe. mConnect has a decent UI and support for Qobuz and TIDAL, while the MPDluxe UI is a very clunky. However, from my experiments it seems that mConnect is playing over the network, while MPDluxe is doing local playback. If I kill the mConnect iOS app while music is playing, it stops. Not so with MPDluxe. (To be fair, it’s been a few years since I tried Glider).

 

One cool thing about mConnect is that I can use my Mojopoly as a UPnP media server for my Sonos speakers :)

 

cheers,

muski

Hugo22Go is not nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I use it all the time with PGGB files + convolution + LCDi4 and the sound is just insane. I have a fairly optimized Dave system costing several multiples more, and each time I switch to H22Go I’m startled, and honestly, a bit dismayed.

 

I mean for all the time, money, and work I put into the home setup I keep feeling like the portable should be a huge jump down. Instead, it surprises me with just how much it captures of the full system. I get reminded real quick that both systems are now operating with the same upscaling reconstruction, filtering, and number of taps. 
 

Of course there’s so much more to sound, but PGGB can go far to democratize audio systems. 

[muski]

11 hours ago, edwardsean said:

Hugo22Go is not nearly as bad as some make it out to be.  

Seems like some units are better than others. I had one for a while. The wifi drops were annoying enough (and inexcusably bad engineering), but worse, I’d get loud clicks every two or three minutes that were unbearable. I tried a few firmware updates but no luck and I returned it. Shame, as I really wanted it to work and the sound was really enjoyable for ninety seconds at a time :) 

 

Anyway, as you point out, PGGB is a great pairing with Chord portable rigs!

[edwardsean]

2 hours ago, muski said:

Seems like some units are better than others. I had one for a while. The wifi drops were annoying enough (and inexcusably bad engineering), but worse, I’d get loud clicks every two or three minutes that were unbearable. I tried a few firmware updates but no luck and I returned it. Shame, as I really wanted it to work and the sound was really enjoyable for ninety seconds at a time :) 

 

Anyway, as you point out, PGGB is a great pairing with Chord portable rigs!

 

I know many have chosen PGGB on sound quality alone, but I do find the H22Go application is another huge benefit.  

 

Whether PGGB or Mscaler has the better sound can be debated, but only one allows for portability. I remember back when the Mscaler came out people were actually asking the question of whether they should buy a Dave or an Mscaler + Hugo2. Now, you have Hugo2 + PGGB + 2Go in this little portable powerhouse packet. As a system it also solves a host of noise issues, by the by, further improving SQ. 

 

When I was going through the effort of converting my entire library, part of the motivation was knowing, at the end, not only will I have these files for my Dave at home, but H22Go on the road. To tell you the truth, even at home, I sometimes slap H22GPGGB onto a pair of Omegas for 2-Channel. I sit back and muse, "Is this the absolute highest ratio of sound quality to cost and size on the planet?" 

 

Whether it is or not, H22GPGGB should be a thing. 

[rocky]

I installed PGGB-RT a little while ago into foobar but have not be able to get it started.

Foobar v1.6.9. Just cloned my 120GB SSD c: to a new 500GB SSD in case it was that. 425GB free now.

Windows 10 Pro 64bit 21H2 with all current updates.

GA-H81.Amp-UP mb, 16GB ram, Intel i5-4460T

 

Everytime I start foobar and look at the console I see

Components loaded in: 0:00.932679
Configuration read in: 0:00.134356
foobar2000 v1.6.9 [standard]
User Interface initialized in: 0:00.102812
foo_upnp: succesfully loaded file C:\Users\stere\AppData\Roaming\foobar2000\foo_upnp.xml
foo_upnp: initialized in 0.008s
PGGB-RT init failed: I/O error (win32 #536)
FFmpeg version: 4.3.1
Startup time : 0:02.518989

 

Using ASIO and now tried ASIO2 in the output.

Is that something obvious to others I need to do to get it started?

Is this error mean I have something setup wrong? PGGB-RT init failed: I/O error (win32 #536)

 

I could always try a reformat of Windows. I think I did that about a year ago but ported over all my settings for foobar etc. This being my media PC for 8 years with different Windows versions over time.

 

 

 

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

7 hours ago, rocky said:

I installed PGGB-RT a little while ago into foobar but have not be able to get it started.

Foobar v1.6.9. Just cloned my 120GB SSD c: to a new 500GB SSD in case it was that. 425GB free now.

Windows 10 Pro 64bit 21H2 with all current updates.

GA-H81.Amp-UP mb, 16GB ram, Intel i5-4460T

 

Everytime I start foobar and look at the console I see

Components loaded in: 0:00.932679
Configuration read in: 0:00.134356
foobar2000 v1.6.9 [standard]
User Interface initialized in: 0:00.102812
foo_upnp: succesfully loaded file C:\Users\stere\AppData\Roaming\foobar2000\foo_upnp.xml
foo_upnp: initialized in 0.008s
PGGB-RT init failed: I/O error (win32 #536)
FFmpeg version: 4.3.1
Startup time : 0:02.518989

 

Using ASIO and now tried ASIO2 in the output.

Is that something obvious to others I need to do to get it started?

Is this error mean I have something setup wrong? PGGB-RT init failed: I/O error (win32 #536)

 

I could always try a reformat of Windows. I think I did that about a year ago but ported over all my settings for foobar etc. This being my media PC for 8 years with different Windows versions over time.

 

 

 

 

The foobar component works by sending the data across to a 64bit dll (Because foobar does not support native 64 bit processing and foobar-rt needs the most accurate processing we can use). The error indicates this communication pipeline is broken. One possible reason for this is an antivirus software interfering. If you can temporarily disable an antivirus software you are using and check if the issue persists. If it still persists, we will have to create a special version for you that will provide more information on what exactly is failing.

 

Also if you downloaded foobar from Windows store, please try uninstalling and installing foobar directly from the foobar site.

[Progisus]

On 1/15/2022 at 8:27 PM, muski said:

I’ve also been playing PGGB’ed files on my Mojopoly when traveling. Sounds is superb (sometimes staggeringly so) for such a tiny device. It’s an ideal use case for PGGB. (I’m still mScaler/DAVE at home). Shame Hugo 2/2Go is such a train wreck as I bet that would be an ever more compelling solution with PGGB files from the SD card.

 

I’ve tried a bunch of iOS apps including Glider, but my two favorites are mConnect and MPDluxe. mConnect has a decent UI and support for Qobuz and TIDAL, while the MPDluxe UI is a very clunky. However, from my experiments it seems that mConnect is playing over the network, while MPDluxe is doing local playback. If I kill the mConnect iOS app while music is playing, it stops. Not so with MPDluxe. (To be fair, it’s been a few years since I tried Glider).

 

One cool thing about mConnect is that I can use my Mojopoly as a UPnP media server for my Sonos speakers :)

 

cheers,

muski

Have you tried Rigelian. It is direct playback and has a few cool features. I have not tried it with my Poly but used it extensively with my Antipodes EX. 

[rocky]

10 hours ago, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

The foobar component works by sending the data across to a 64bit dll (Because foobar does not support native 64 bit processing and foobar-rt needs the most accurate processing we can use). The error indicates this communication pipeline is broken. One possible reason for this is an antivirus software interfering. If you can temporarily disable an antivirus software you are using and check if the issue persists. If it still persists, we will have to create a special version for you that will provide more information on what exactly is failing.

 

Also if you downloaded foobar from Windows store, please try uninstalling and installing foobar directly from the foobar site.

Thank you. I gave it a shot to disable the Microsoft built in Windows security. Even put in a exclusion for folder foo_pggb_rt and no go still. I always go to Foobar website to download the latest one.

I will try at some stage formatting and setting up windows again. As there is not much on this PC now. Used now for mainly Audio only.

Might try uninstalling Foobar and reset that up, now I know this is not a common error problem for others.

I have a JCat usb XE card in there going to a Singxer SU-6 then Holo Dac.

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

17 hours ago, rocky said:

Thank you. I gave it a shot to disable the Microsoft built in Windows security. Even put in a exclusion for folder foo_pggb_rt and no go still. I always go to Foobar website to download the latest one.

I will try at some stage formatting and setting up windows again. As there is not much on this PC now. Used now for mainly Audio only.

Might try uninstalling Foobar and reset that up, now I know this is not a common error problem for others.

I have a JCat usb XE card in there going to a Singxer SU-6 then Holo Dac.

Please email [email protected] for further support related to foobar-RT

[rocky]

On 1/20/2022 at 11:55 PM, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

Please email [email protected] for further support related to foobar-RT

Thanks to Zaph and Dan for helping me fix my problem.

It was my user error and Zaph has an excellent guide which I missed following a key point.

I just needed to install the latest Microsoft runtime and reboot and all working.

I really appreciate you guys for your help on this.