Frequently Asked Questions - Solar Fire

it is true that you can create a Duad chart in Solar Fire. Here are the steps:

1. Calculate your Natal Chart
2. Go to Chart/Vedic/D12 Dwadashamsha.
3. Select and Click OK
4. If you calculated your Natal Chart using the Tropical Zodiac then you will be asked if you want to change the Zodiac. Click NO
5. The chart created is the equivalent of Duads which means that each sign of the Zodiac has been divided into twelve 2degree30minutes sections.

You can copy any of Solar Fire's chart displays and graphic ephemerides to the Windows clipboard (to be pasted into another program) to a file anywhere on your computer or network, or to a file that is automatically attached t an email ready to be addressed and sent. Various graphic file formats may be used, as well as some other options governing the appearance of the output

To copy, publish or send a graphic:
From the Chart View screen, select the Copy button
From the Graphic Ephemeris screen, select the Copy menu item after using the right hand mouse button over the ephemeris area. This will display the Copy Image To dialog box, allowing various selections to be made

Destination: Clipboard: this will send the graphic to the Windows clipboard, from where it can be pasted into any other program that recognizes the graphic type. For example, you can paste it into a word processor or desktop publishing program
File: this will send the graphic to a file of your choice. You will be prompted to specify a file name and location
Email attachment: This will generate a graphic file that is automatically attached to an outgoing email, ready to send, provided that you have a MAPI compliant email program

Graphic Type:

Bitmap: this will create a bitmap file, which is a fixed resolution graphics file used in many Windows applications. This type of graphic may be placed and scaled in some other application, but as it has a fixed resolution, doing so may cause some loss of image quality. Typically this type of file is rather large (often over 1 megabyte) and is therefore not usually suitable for sending over the internet, unless it is first zipped or compressed in some way
Metafile: this will create a Windows metafile, which is a scalable graphics file used in many Windows applications. It is possible to place and scale the graphic to your requirements without loss of image quality, using the commands of the application that you are using. Hence this format is good for high quality desktop publishing. This type of file is usually very small in size, but it has the disadvantage that if you send it over the internet, the recipient must have the required Solar Fire fonts installed on their machine, or else they will see incorrect symbols in place of any astrological glyphs
JPEG: this will create a JPEG file, which is somewhat like a compressed bitmap file. This type of graphic may be placed and scaled in some other application, but as it has a fixed resolution, doing so may cause some loss of image quality. Generally the JPEG format is preferred when your images contain photographic or artistic elements; otherwise the GIF format is usually much better
GIF: this will create a GIF file, which is a compressed bitmap file, without loss of clarity, allowing a maximum of 256 colours. Typically this type of file is very small and isespecially well suited to sending over the internet and via email. The main exception is if the image you are sending contains a very large range of colours, such as you would find in a photographic image. In such cases, there would be a significant loss of colour depth and the JPEG format may be preferable
PDF: this will create a PDF file containing the graphic on a single page, the size of which is dictated by your default printer page size settings. This format is fully scalable, so is well suited for desktop publishing type requirements. This option automatically includes embedded astrological font glyphs inside the PDF file, to ensure full portability to other computers over the internet, for example

Special Options:

Include Captions: when copying to a Metafile or PDF format, it is possible to select whether or not the chart details and compliments text are included in the output. Sometimes, for desk top publishing requirements, it is preferable to have the chart on its own without any text, and for any captions to be added separately to the document
Monochrome: when copying to a Metafile or PDF format, it is possible to select whether or not the generated graphic should be in the currently displayed colour scheme, or in Monochrome, black lines and text only. As many publications are only in monochrome, this option makes it easy to ensure that the graphic is in an appropriate format
Quality: when copying to a JPEG format, it is possible to choose the level of trade-off between quality and size of the graphic. The range is 1, lowest quality, smallest storage size to 100, highest quality, largest storage size. Typically, a value of 50 provides an adequate level of quality without using too much storage. If you are sending graphics that have a lot of detail and small text, you may wish t increase the quality, whereas if the graphic does not have much fine detail, and only has large glyphs, then you might be able to economize by decreasing the quality.

At installation time, a user has the option of installing Solar Fire Gold program files to a different location. We recommend that you do not change folders, however; we also recognise that there are many reasons why you might want to install Solar Fire Gold into a different location, one being that it can be useful to install Solar Fire Gold into a different drive letter either in a separate partition on the same hard drive or to a separate hard drive altogether.

If you decide to install our Solar Fire Gold program files to a different location, particularly a different drive letter, this raises the question as to how you can move the Solar Fire User Files folder as well. Together with an "Enter at Your Own Risk" or "For Advanced Users Only" caution, here are the steps:

Decide where you would like to move the "Solar Fire User Files" folder. For example, you could create a new folder path at this location on another drive letter: "F\Astrology\SF Gold"

Using Windows Explorer (right click on the start button then click on 'Explore') navigate to the following folder location:

Windows XP or earlier:
C:\Documents and Settings\<Login Name>\My Documents

Windows Vista:
C:\Users\<Login Name>\Documents

You should see the "Solar Fire User Files" folder located at this default folder.

Ensure that you can see both the "Solar Fire User Files" folder and the new location folder in your Windows Explorer.

You will now "drag and drop" the folder using the steps below:
Move your mouse cursor to the current "Solar Fire User Files" folder and when the folder is highlighted hold down the right hand mouse button while dragging the file towards its new folder location, keeping the right hand mouse button fully down while moving the mouse. When the new folder location is highlighted by the mouse cursor, release the right hand mouse button and you will see a small menu. Click on the "Move Here" menu item and the entire "Solar Fire User Files" folder with all of its files will be moved to the new location.

You now need to modify the SOLFIRE7.INI file located in the C:\Windows folder

NOTE:
For Windows XP and earlier operating systems, you can modify the INI file in place, however for Windows Vista you cannot edit any file in the C:\Windows folder while the User Account is operating. For Windows Vista, you need to first copy the SOLFIRE8.INI file to another folder location, say C:\Users\\Documents, edit the file at that new location then move it back to C:\Windows enabling you to overwrite the existing one, if you have System Administrator rights

Since SOLFIRE8.INI is a text file, you can use your favourite text editor, like the Windows Notepad program. Open SOLFIRE7.INI in the text editor then under the "System DataPath=" entry at the top of the file, add a new line and type "UserFolder= where "the path>" is the new folder location of the "Solar Fire User Files" . Using the example above, you would type the following entry

UserFolder=F:Astrology\SF Gold\Solar Fire User Files\

When Solar Fire Gold is first installed, it creates a set of original files in "C:\Program Files\SolarFire8\UserFiles\Charts"

When Solar Fire Gold starts up for the first time, it then creates a folder at: "C:\Users\<LoginName>\Documents\Solar Fire User Files\Charts"

And then copies the original files over to this folder. It is the "C:\Users\<LoginName>\Documents\Solar Fire User Files\Charts"
That is used for all access to and for saving new charts to the various chart files. The original files at "C:\Program Files\SolarFire8\User Files\Charts" are not a second chart file storage area and should never be accessed by you, the user, especially if you have Windows Vista or Windows 7 because, on these operating systems, any files in any sub folder under "C:\Program Files" cannot be updated- the folder is effectively 'read only'

Make sure that all of your charts and data have been saved to a USB. Then you need to perform a clean uninstall. This means making sure that you remove ALL old files, folders and settings during the uninstall process. To do this:

1. Go to Start, hover the mouse over All Programs.
2. Click on the Esoteric Technologies folder.
3. Then click on the Solar Fire Gold v8 folder.
4. Scroll down the list and click on Uninstall.
5. Re install your Solar Fire, making sure you do not launch the program until the Solar Fire User Files have finished extracting at the end.

This message usually appears when opening Solar Fire for the first time after installing. Generally it means that something has not installed properly.
Please perform a clean uninstall via Start>All Programs>Esoteric Technologies>Solar Fire>Uninstall
Then re-install Solar Fire

This can happen on the original 2001 version of Windows XP if you have now downloaded the Microsoft 'Application Compatibility Update' since you first installed Solar Fire. Now you need to turn off the 'Compatibility Mode.' To do that right click on the Solar Fire icon on your desktop, then click on 'properties' and then click on the 'Compatibility' tab. Everything on this Compatibility screen should be unchecked. In other words turn off compatibility mode for Solar Fire. Solar Fire always works properly with compatibility mode turned off, but sometimes the original Windows XP turns it on automatically for mysterious reasons.

If you are trying to install Solar Fire V8 from the download link we provided you and you get a "Win32" error, then the download was incomplete or the file somehow got corrupted. You should delete that file and re download the program.

Hopefully you don't have to do this very often, but for technical reasons if you want to uninstall Solar Fire you can do so by following the steps below.

Click on Start, then click on the Control Panel, then scroll down the list and click on Add or Remove Programs.
Locate Solar Fire on the list of programs, click on it to highlight it, and then click on the Remove or Uninstall button.
This action will begin the uninstall process, when it has completed not all folders are deleted, so you now need to get into the Windows Explorer.
Right click on the Start button, then click on the Explore item.
In the left hand pane click on the arrow in front of Local Disk C. Scroll down the list, look for Program Files and click on it. This action will open the folder in the right hand pane. Scroll down the list in the right hand pane, look for SolarFire 8, right click on it and then click Delete.
In the left hand pane again scroll down the list, look for the Windows folder and click on it. This action will open the folder in the right hand pane. Scroll down the list in the right hand pane, look for Solfire8, right click on it and then click Delete.

You have now successfully uninstalled Solar Fire.

If you receive this error message:
"Swiss Ephemeris files missing, contact Solar Fire technical support. Environment variable SE_EPHE_PATH detected! This variable is most likely set incorrectly"

then there is a conflict with the Swiss Ephemeris from another Astrology program. The other program is trying to force Solar Fire Gold to use the Swiss Ephemeris from the other software. However, Solar Fire Gold needs the latest version of the Swiss Ephemeris. This problem happens mainly with older versions of other astrology programs and older versions of Windows.

The other astrology programs on your computer should be able to use the newer atlas that is included with Solar Fire Gold. In fact, the newer atlas in Solar Fire Gold may actually increase the accuracy of those other astrology programs.

Here is how you delete the environment variable so that the newer Swiss Ephemeris in Solar Fire Gold will be used by your computer:

Right click on the Start button, select Explore
In the left hand pane of the box that appears, right click on Computer, then select Properties from the list that appears
In the next box that appears, in the top left hand corner click on the link that says Advanced System Properties, for Windows 7, for XP click on Advanced
In the box that appears in the bottom right hand corner click on Environment Variables
You will see two lists; one says User Variable and the other says System Variables. Scroll down both of these lists and see if there is a variable that says: SE_EPHE_PATH
If you see one or more select them and press delete.

You can also correct this problem by deleting the autoexec.bat file. The only problem with this method is that it can sometimes delete other important files. If you choose to use this method you do so at your own risk. Here are the steps to take to delete the autoexec.bat file:
Open a CMD window. Click on the Start button, then click on Run. In the box that appears type in CMD
Do a "dir autoexec.bat" command within window 3
If autoexec.bat is found then type "autoexec.bat"
Verify that the only thing happening in the file is "set SE_EPHE_PATH"
If this is the case, then "del autoexec.bat"
Type "exit" in the CMD window, which should then close it
Reboot the computer.

One way to do this is in Solar Fire's Page Designer. Out of bounds planets can be seen in any page that has a "list format" object with declination as one of the columns in the list eg Points List - flexible, Asteroid List - flexible.
When one of these objects is added to a page, click on the object to select it, then click on the Columns button at top left of the list and select "Declination (mins)" as a column. While you're in the columns selection dialog box, also select the "Declination (mins)" column as the column to sort the list by. Save and select the page to use in the View Chart window.
This list will contain the declinations of all the current points etc, with the declinations sorted. Any points with declinations out of bounds will be coloured a bright magenta and will be either at the top and/or bottom of the list.

Start up Solar Fire.  From the main menu screen, click on Utilities> Backup All user Files.
Select the USB drive letter by double clicking on it.
Under the drive letter, click on the make a new folder button and create a folder name e.g. My SF backup files.  Click on this new folder, then click on the ok button, then confirm the next screen to begin saving all of your files.
Almost all things are saved such as; core charts, customised wheel styles, customised page layouts and customised interpretation text. Retained charts are not saved.

If you have installed the latest Solar Fire onto your existing computer, then you simply need to import your Solar Fire chart files. You can do this by going to Utilities/Chart Import/Export on the main Solar Fire screen. This will take you to the Chart Conversion section of Solar Fire. From here you can locate your current Chart files and then Import.
If your old Solar Fire Chart files are on your old computer then we recommend that you transfer them to and from a USB key. You can save your Chart files on a USB key from the main menu screen. Click on Utilities> Backup All user Files.
Select the USB drive letter by double clicking on it.
Under the drive letter, click on the make a new folder button and create a folder name e.g. My SF backup files.  Click on this new folder, then click on the ok button, then confirm the next screen to begin saving all of your files.
Almost all things are saved such as: core charts, customised wheel styles, customised page layouts and customised interpretation text. Retained charts are not saved.  Once on your new computer with your new Solar Fire you can Import these files from the USB key from the same Utilities/Chart Import/Export menu item.

Unlike other software, Solar Fire upgrades are complete and work as a new full software program.  As a loyal Solar Fire user you pay an upgrade price, but you receive a totally new program. You may, of course, wish to back-up your Chart and User files and transfer them on to your new computer.

Technical Support for Solar Fire products is FREE for all current versions. So that we can keep this service cost free and personal please make sure that you contact us for Genuine Technical difficulties only. If you would like information on HOW TO USE our software then please feel free to join in our Online Classes, run on a regular basis by Rhonda Buttery.
You can also contact your local agent for information about local demonstration days

he short answer is "no". Please note that once a software license is registered in a person's name it is not transferable. This means that upgrades and technical support are available only to registered users. When purchasing software please ensure that the correct name is registered. We also have a policy of No Refunds.
Astrolabe Inc. and Esoteric Technologies Pty Ltd have put this page together to share information on the issue of software piracy and the impact on both of our companies as well as on our valued customers.

As noted by the Business Software Alliance (www.bsa.org)
"Quite simply, to make or download unauthorized copies of software is to break the law, no matter how many copies are involved. Whether you are casually making a few copies for friends, loaning disks, distributing and/or downloading pirated software via the Internet, or buying a single software program and then installing it on 100 of your company's personal computers, you are committing a copyright infringement. It doesn't matter if you are doing it to make money or not - if you or your company is caught copying software, you may be held liable under both civil and criminal law.
Apart from legal consequences, using copied or counterfeit software also means:

• Greater exposure to software viruses, corrupt disks, or otherwise defective software
• Inadequate or no documentation
• No warranties
• Lack of technical product support available to properly licensed users
• Ineligibility for software upgrades offered to properly licensed users

There is no known problem with entering a password on the download version. Usually this problem is encountered when you are not entering your Registration details correctly. Please make sure that you are entering your details word and number perfect. Capitals must be capitals, lower case must be lower case etc. Also please ensure that you are not mistaking a numerical "0" for an alphabetical "o" and vice versa.  
Our password system does reply on the computer being set for English in the Windows settings, as well as an regular English keyboard. If you have you're your Windows to a language other than English or you are using a another language for the keyboard settings then, yes, there might be a problem.  
You will need to check the language setting in Windows, as follows:
Start > Control Panel > Regional and Language Options
Formats tab: Current format: English (Australia) [or English (anything)]
Keyboards and Languages tab: click on "Change Keyboards" button and on the next screen, under the General tab, check that the keyboard is set to "US" for the English (Australia) language

Here is how you can create the dials:
* Start up SFv8 (or SFv7.3.1)
* Click on Chart Options > Dial Styles > UniDial to see the Dial Design screen
* Click on the existing Dial225.di1 file to highlight it
* Click on the "Copy" button then give the new dial style a name, like "Dial24", then click on the "Save" button, and this new style will be added to the list
* Next, click on the "Edit" button (the the new dial highlighted in the list) and the Property list will be displayed
* Simply change the "Dial Degrees" from the existing 22.5 to 24 (or 120)
* Click on the "File" menu item then click on the "Save" menu item then exit out of the designer and you have your new Dial style

Decan rulers can be changed in SF v7.3.1 (and SFv8). To modify the assignments, click on Utilities > Edit Rulers/Weightings... and in the top half of this screen, you can change the rulerships. Just know that the present rulerships seem to be OK unless you have a very special case for a client.

The Modern rulerships for Decans can be seen on the Level 1 dropdown (the default), and you can read them off the dropdowns for the 1st Decan, 2nd Decan and 3rd decan, after clicking on each sign. The Traditional decan rulers are on Level 2 so if you now change the dropdown from Level 1 to Level 2, you will see that both the "Name of Set" and "Menu Name" changes from "Modern" to "Traditional" and again you can read off the traditional decan assignments.
For example, if you click on Pisces for Level 1 (Modern), you will see Neptune, Moon, Pluto as the decan rulers. If you now change the level to Level 2 (Traditional) then you will see Saturn, Jupiter, Mars as the decan rulers.
You will notice that there are also Level 3 for Esoteric rulerships, Level 4 for Hierarchical rulerships, and a relatively new one, Level 5, for the Nakshatra assignments, which is the one used in SFv8. Though Level 5 was available in SFv7.3.1, there was no wheel style for it to display the nakshatras but there is now in SFv8.