MapInfo Professional 9.

0 Release
Notes
These Release Notes are a reference to known problems in the MapInfo Professional 9.0
product and provide information on problems that have been fixed.

Pitney Bowes MapInfo Corporate

Headquarters:
Phone: 518 285 6000
Fax: 518 285 6070
Sales: 800 327 8627
Government Sales: 800 619 2333
Technical Support: 518 285 7283
www.mapinfo.com
Pitney Bowes MapInfo UK and EMEA
Headquarters:
Phone: 44 1753 848200
Fax: 44 1753 621140
Technical Support: 44 1753 848229
www.mapinfo.co.uk
Pitney Bowes MapInfo Asia Pacific
Headquarters:
Phone: 61 2 9437 6255
Fax: 61 2 9439 1773
Technical Support: 61 7 3844 7744
www.mapinfo.com.au

Table of Contents

Known Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Licensing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Windows Vista . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Installing on a Network Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
FME License Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Curved Labels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Layout Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Running Online Help from a MapInfo Professional Client . . . . . .
Homeland Security Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Universal Translator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Universal Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Resolutions to Known Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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2007 PB MapInfo Corporation. All rights

reserved. MapInfo and the MapInfo logo are
trademarks of PB MapInfo Corporation and/
or its affiliates.
June 15, 2007

Known Problems
This section contains a list of the known problems in MapInfo Professional 9.0.

Licensing
Concurrent Licenses
Premature termination of MapInfo Professional because of network problems, a power outage, or other reasons that
disrupt the connection to the MapInfo License Server may prevent a license from being checked in. In these cases, the
license remains checked out until the MapInfo License Server can be restarted.

License Server System Requirements

The MapInfo License Server system requirements were inadvertently omitted in the documentation accompanying the
License Server. The requirements are supplied here.

Minimum Requirements
The following table gives the minimum system requirements for MapInfo License Server 9.0.
Minimum
Memory

Operating System

Minimum Disk
Space

Minimum Graphics

Minimum Monitor

Windows 2000
Professional SP 4

128 MB of RAM
with a minimum
of a Pentium PC

Application 12.7 MB

16- or 24-bit color

800x600 display

Windows XP
Professional SP 2

64 MB of RAM
with a minimum
of a Pentium PC

Application 12.7 MB

16- or 24-bit color

800x600 display

Windows Vista

128 MB of RAM
with a minimum
of a Pentium PC

Application 12.7 MB

16- or 24-bit color

800x600 display

Windows 2003 SP 1

64 MB of RAM
with a minimum
of a Pentium PC

Application 12.7 MB

16- or 24-bit color

800x600 display

MapInfo Professional 9.0 Release Notes

Recommended Requirements
The following table gives the recommended system requirements for MapInfo License Server 9.0:

Operating System

Recommended
Memory

Recommended Disk
Space

Recommended
Graphics

Recommended Monitor

Windows 2000
Professional SP 4

256/512 MB of
RAM with a
minimum of a
Pentium PC

Fast EIDE 2 or SCSI

Interface with 2 GB or
better

Mid to high 2D/3D card

with 128 MB or better

1024x768 resolution or
better

Windows XP
Professional SP 2

256/512 MB of
RAM with a
minimum of a
Pentium PC

Fast EIDE 2 or SCSI

Interface with 2 GB or
better

Mid to high 2D/3D card

with 128 MB or better

1024x768 resolution or
better

Windows Vista

256/512 MB of
RAM with a
minimum of a
Pentium PC

Fast EIDE 2 or SCSI

Interface with 2 GB or
better

Mid to high 2D/3D card

with 128 MB or better

1024x768 resolution or
better

Windows 2003 SP 1

256/512 MB of
RAM with a
minimum of a
Pentium PC

Fast EIDE 2 or SCSI

Interface with 2 GB or
better

Mid to high 2D/3D card

with 128 MB or better

1024x768 resolution or
better

Windows Vista
This section describes issues in MapInfo Professional that occur when you are running the Windows Vista operating
system.

Unable to Activate Product

If you are running the MapInfo Professional client from a network installation on a Windows Vista computer, you are
unable to activate the product or start the courtesy period. If you attempt to activate the product, the following message
displays on the screen:
Unable to activate. You will be unable to use %1 until activation completes successfully.
If you attempt to start the courtesy period, the following message displays on the screen:
Courtesy period initialization failed with code.
When you click OK in the message dialog box, a subsequent message displays on the screen:
We are unable to validate your license due to error -1. Please contact MapInfo Customer Service.
MapInfo Professional will now close.
These errors occur because of default security settings on Vista. To work around the problem, you can either modify
the security settings of each client, or modify the Permissions settings on the server.

MapInfo Professional 9.0 Release Notes

Client Solution
The Local Security Policy on Windows Vista must be modified for each MapInfo Professional client that is running on
Vista.
To modify the settings.
1. Select Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Local Security Policy.
2. Expand Local Policies.
3. Select Security Options.
4. Locate the policy titled "Run all administrators in Admin Approval Mode".
5. Right click on this policy and select properties.
6. Select Disable.
7. Restart the operating system.
8. Start MapInfo Professional. You will be unable to activate the product.
9. Start MapInfo Professional again. You will be able to activate the product or start the courtesy period.

Server Solution
To resolve the problem on the server, the server Permission settings must be modified so that access to a server is
granted based on the computers local system account.
Enabling Access to Network Shares for SYSTEM Account
Description
In some cases it is necessary to grant access to a file share based on a computers local SYSTEM account rather than
the currently logged in USER account. If part of a task is to reach out to network file share resources on a Windows
domain, then the network file share access control list on the target server needs to be configured to allow such access
from the domain computer because the task does not run as the logged in user but rather SYSTEM. In the cases
where a computer needs to access resources and it is not part of a shared domain, the Guest account needs to be
enabled on the target server and the share needs to be configured for anonymous access.
Prerequisites
Administrative rights on the target server (server that hosts the file share) and client computer.
Note: The data partition on the target server should be NTFS to allow for more granular ability to specify
access privileges.

This document assumes a Windows server host. Check with your storage vendor for similar procedures on
different storage devices.
Assumes that the Simple File Sharing check box (Explorer> Tools > Folder Options> View tab) is not selected.

Procedure
Both computers share a common Windows domain or are in trusted domains.
1. In Explorer, right click on the folder that is to be shared and select Sharing and Security from the popup menu.
Click the Sharing tab from the folder Properties dialog box.
2. In the window that appears, click on the Permissions button (See Figure 1).
3. Click the Add button
4. Click the Object Types button
5. Check the Computers box and click OK.

MapInfo Professional 9.0 Release Notes

6. Enter the name of the computer followed by a $ sign to give a single computer access (e.g., CLIENT1$) or add
predefined Active Directory groups such as Domain Computers or a manually defined group and click OK. (See
Figure 1).
7. Ensure that the proper level of access is applied to each item in the list.

Figure 1
8. Click the Security tab and ensure that the proper rights are granted to allow the computer(s) to read at the file level.
Repeat steps 3-6 to add the same groups if necessary.

Silent Installs
You cannot perform a completely silent install of MapInfo Professional on Windows Vista computers. The commandline options /q and /qn do not work on Vista. These options turn off the user interface during the installation, which
suppresses the Windows Vista User Access Control (UAC). Users must interact with the UAC to provide the necessary
credentials to run the installation as an administrator. If the user interface is turned off, the installation is terminated
without warning because the UAC cannot gather the appropriate credentials.
To work around the problem, use the /qb option in the command line when you run the silent install. This option gives
the installation a basic user interface and allows the UAC to display on the screen.
To perform a silent install on a Windows Vista computer using the /qb option:
1. Place the installation CD in the target computers disk drive.
2. From the command line on the target computer, type:
"d:\Install\MI_PRO\DISK1\setup.exe" /s /v"/qb USERNAME=\"MyUser\"
COMPANYNAME=\"MyCompanyName\"PIDKEY=MI############## ACCD=######"
where:
PIDKEY=MI############## is the product serial number
ACCD=###### is the access code
3. When User Access Control displays on the screen, click Allow.
For concurrent licenses, the license server name and port number parameters must be included:
LNAME="LicenseServerName"
LSPN="LicenseServerPortNumber"
Substitute the appropriate license server name and port number when you perform the silent install.

MapInfo Professional 9.0 Release Notes

Unable to Install GeoTracker

When you attempt to install the GeoTracker on Windows Vista, the following error message displays on the screen:
Error 1606. Could not address network location \GPS.

Unable to Drag and Drop a Map onto Desktop

If you are running MapInfo Professional on a Windows Vista computer, you cannot drag and drop a Map window onto
your desktop.

Installing on a Network Drive

Installing MapInfo Professional on a mapped network drive produces an error: the MIInstallUtil.dll cannot be found.
To meet Vista security requirements, the Installshield software used to create the MapInfo Professional installation
program requires system rights to do certain tasks from the network. However, when you access the network using
system credentials only, the network considers you anonymous, and therefore unknown. Unknown users cannot
perform tasks on the network, such as calling the MIInstall.Util.dll, or running mapinfow.exe -regserver.
The same problem occurs on MapInfo Professional Runtime.
We recommend that you install MapInfo Professional on a local drive.

FME License Errors

MapInfo Professional Client on Vista
If you are running the MapInfo Professional client from a network installation on a Windows Vista computer, you may
receive an FME error when launching the MapInfo Professional application. This occurs because default security
enhancements on Windows Vista do not allow MapInfo Professional to write a key to the registry. When this happens,
the following error message displays on the screen:
An error occurred while using the FME license session: FME license system failure: License dependency check
failed. This FME Suite license is dependent on another licence which is not available.
When MapInfo Professional is installed, a mapinfow.exe -regserver is issued to add the program directory path in the
ProgramDirectory registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MapInfo\MapInfo\Professional\ProgramDirectory
FME looks for this path so that it can grant its license.
On client installations of MapInfo Professional that run on Vista, the -regserver is failing to write the program directory
path to the registry, which in turn causes the FME license verification to fail.
To work around the problem, you must add the program directory path to the registry. Do the following:
1. On Vista, create a shortcut to mapinfow.exe and add -regserver. This can be done by right-clicking on the shortcut,
and selecting Properties. On the Shortcut tab, add -regserver to the Target edit box after mapinfow.exe.
2. Run the shortcut from the desktop as administrator. Right-click on the shortcut and select Run as Administrator.
3. The registry is populated with the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MapInfo\MapInfo\Professional\ProgramDirectory

MapInfo Professional 9.0 Release Notes

Side-by-Side Installations
In a side-by-side installation of MapInfo Professional 9.0 and a version of MapInfo Professional earlier than 9.0,
removing the earlier version of the product may remove the 9.0 FME license. When you start MapInfo Professional 9.0,
you may receive an error informing you that the FME license failed.
FME may be looking in the registry for the ProgramDirectory key under the pre-9.0 version of MapInfo Professional. To
work around the problem:
1. Start MapInfo Professional 9.0.
2. An FME license failure error message displays on the screen.
3. Close MapInfo Professional and then restart it.

Curved Labels
Moving a Curved Label
You cannot click and drag a curved label to another location.
Use the Label tool to move the label to another location along the segment.

Labels Curve on Straight Segment

Although a street segment appears to be straight, the label may be curved. This happens because the polyline data for
the street segment contains a curve that is not visible at the current zoom level. The label is following the curve of the
street even though the curve isnt visible. If you zoom in on the map to a close enough distance, you will be able to see
the curve in the street.

Layout Templates
Legends
If you create a Layout template that uses a Legend window, you will only be able to add a cartographic legend to the
layout.
For example, you have a Layout template that has Map and Legend windows in it, and you have a thematic map that
you want to use in the layout. To create a legend for the layout, you open a Legend window by using the Show/Hide
legend tool in the Main toolbar. When you choose Map>Print from Layout, no legend is rendered in the output.
However, if you create a cartographic legend and choose Map>Print from Layout, you are prompted to select a legend.
You are able to select the cartographic legend. In the output, the cartographic legend is rendered correctly.

View Template Window

You cannot close the View Template window using the Windows Close button.

Running Online Help from a MapInfo Professional Client

Because of Windows security settings, a .chm file cannot be run from a network location. It must be run locally.
Modifications in MapInfo Professional 9.0 enable the MapInfow.chm (the main online help for the product) to work with
a network install.

MapInfo Professional 9.0 Release Notes

The MapInfow.chm is copied to the allusers directory when the client is installed. This enables the MapInfow.chm to be
accessed locally from the client.
However, other .chm files that support other MapInfo Professional features were not included in these modifications:

IDW
TIN
MapShell
UT

These files cannot be accessed from within MapInfo Professional. To run them, copy them locally, and then doubleclick on the desired .chm file to open the help.

Homeland Security Fonts

The Homeland Security fonts that come with MapInfo Professional are a draft prototype of the symbol standard being
developed by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Homeland Security Working Group, with federal, state,
and local agencies.
When the standards process is complete, an official set of symbols will be released.

Universal Translator
Date/Time and Time Types
When you attempt to translate a .tab file using the Date/Time or Time field types to another format, the Universal
Translator fails and reports the following error:
No specified layers were found in MapInfo Dataset 'C:\Temp'
Program Terminating
Translation FAILED.
Unable to generate mapping file.
The same error occurs when you use projection #32 (Krovak).

Swedish Indices
When you convert a MapInfo .tab file that contains a Swedish index through the Universal Translator, the translation
fails no matter what format you convert the file to. You receive the following error message:
Translation failed. See log file for details.

MapInfo Professional 9.0 Release Notes

Universal Data
MIF File Translation
Translating very large MIF files to an E00 format file can fail because of out-of-memory errors.

Connecting to ArcSDE
You cannot connect to ArcSDE with the Open Universal Data command (File>Open Universal Data) if the user name
has quotation marks in it.

MicroStation Design Format Settings

When you open a MicroStation Design format file (File>Open Universal Data), you can specify a number of settings
that control how the file is processed. Click Settings in the Input Data Source dialog to open the Design File Input
Settings dialog box and access these settings. The default setting in the Group Elements By option is Level.
Grouping elements by level may produce a large number of output files, which can adversely affect performance
because of the number of tables that must be processed. We recommend that you change this setting to Geometry.

Resolutions to Known Problems

The following problems have been fixed for the MapInfo Professional 9.0 release.

Side-by-Side Installations
A side-by-side installation of MapInfo Professional 9.0 and MapInfo Professional 8.5.2 (or earlier) on a Windows Vista
computer corrupted the Mapshell registry. On Vista, even if you are running with admin rights, MapInfo Professional/
MapShells attempts to write to the registry did not work as expected. This occurred under these circumstances:
1. Install MapInfo Professional 8.5.2 or earlier. The application runs without error.
2. Install MapInfo Professional 9.0. The application runs without error.
3. Run the earlier version of MapInfo Professional.The following error displays on the screen:
Unable to convert to short paths! OLE registry may be corrupt!
4. Run MapInfo Professional 9.0 again, and you will get the same error.
MapInfo Professional has been updated so that it will not attempt to register itself when running on Vista. This has the
following implications under these installation scenarios:

MapInfo Professional 9.0 with Earlier Versions

In a side-by-side installation of MapInfo Professional 9.0 and MapInfo Professional 8.5.2 or earlier, the first time the
earlier version of MapInfo Professional is run after version 9.0 is installed, the following error displays on the screen:
Unable to convert to short paths! OLE registry may be corrupt!
This is now the only time that this error message displays. MapInfo Professional 9.0 runs without error.

Side-by-Side Installations with Older Versions

If versions 8.0 and 8.5 are running side-by-side, you will get the "Unable to convert to short paths! OLE registry may be
corrupt!" error every time you switch between the two versions. These versions are not supported on Vista

MapInfo Professional 9.0 Release Notes

Uninstall
If a version of MapInfo Professional has been uninstalled, leaving an existing version without a registered Mapshell,
then you must force re-registration of Mapshell by running "mapinfow -regserver" as an administrator.Do the following:
1. Create a shortcut to mapinfow.exe and add -regserver. This can be done by right-clicking on the shortcut, and
selecting Properties. On the Shortcut tab, add-regserver to the Target edit box after mapinfow.exe.
2. Run the shortcut from the desktop as Administrator. Right-click on the shortcut and select Run as Administrator.

Projections
A change to the EPSG reference for Irish Grid from 29900 to 29902 affected the use of WMS/WFS services in MapInfo
Professional.
For MapInfo Professional 9.0, the EPSG reference for Irish Grid has been changed to 29902.

DWG Files with Proxy Objects

Translating DWG files that have proxy objects failed with the following error:
Undefined macro `Geometry' dereferenced in file `c:\temp\fme774.tmp'
Program Terminating
Translation FAILED.
The DWG file has a $(Geometry) string in the layer name that was read by the translator as a macro named
Geometry. Since there is no Geometry macro, the translator failed.
This problem has been fixed. DWG files now translate correctly.

SHP File Translation

When you translated a SHP file and used the SHP files projection settings, the latitude and longitude origin values of
the resulting .tab file were incorrect for this particular Equidistant Conic projection. The values were set to zero; the
expected values from the SHP files PRJ file were -96 and 37.5. The following CoordSys was used:
CoordSys Earth Projection 6, 74, "m", 0, 0, 29.5, 45.5, 0, 0 Bounds (-22421959.7103, -10001965.7294)
(22421959.7103, 34841953.6912)
The actual CoordSys taken from the SHP file's PRJ file should have been:
CoordSys Earth Projection 6, 74, "m", -96, 37.5, 29.5, 45.5,0, 0
This issue has been fixed.

MicroStation Design File Translation

The Universal Translator failed while converting a MicroStation Design file to a Mapinfo .tab file with the following error:
mapinfo_pen_width must be between 0 and 35
This problem has been fixed.

DGN File Translation

Translating a particular DGN v7 file to MapInfo TAB format failed in MapInfo Professional versions 8.5 and later, but
worked in version 7.8.
This error occurred when attempting to expand unnamed shared cells that have no definition in the MicroStation
header. The translator now handles shared cells that do not have definitions.

MapInfo Professional 9.0 Release Notes

10

CTRL+ALT+DEL Key Sequence and Product Activation

MapInfo Professional crashed if you pressed CTRL+ALT+ DEL while the Activation wizard was running. This problem
has been fixed.

Transparent TIFF Images

The screen display of some transparent TIFF images became corrupted after Image Processing was turned on. This
problem occurred when reprojecting one-bit images.
Reprojection can now accommodate a one-bit image that has a transparent color.

Table Manager Truncates Record Counts

Table Manager v. 2.3, which shipped with MapInfo Professional 8.5, truncated record counts of tables that contained
more than 99,999 records.
This problem has been fixed.

PSD Raster Images

Prior to MapInfo Professional 9.0, some raster images in PSD format could not be opened.
These files can now be opened. The LeadTools raster handler has been updated to version 15 for MapInfo
Professional 9.0.

NADCON Conversions Causing Display Problems

Vector layers in different UTM projections did not overlay correctly when displayed at certain zoom levels. This
occurred when MapInfo Professional used NADCON conversions to redraw the layers.
This problem has been fixed. MapInfo Professional now uses different criteria when it determines what datum
conversion routine to use when displaying objects at certain zoom levels in regions that fall partly within the NADCON
conversion area.

Degree Converter Tool Misspelling

A dialog box in the Degree Converter tool (DMSCNVRT.MBX) contained a misspelling of the word separator. The
misspelling was in the Convert Decimal Degrees to DMS dialog box (Tools>Converter>Convert Column to DMS). The
Results Separator option was spelled Results Seperator.
This problem has been fixed.

MapInfo Professional 9.0 Release Notes

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