Complete Walkthrough - Install MagicMirror on a PC - Windows 7/10

Damian

@Mykle1 said in Complete Walkthrough - Install MagicMirror on a PC - Windows 7:

@Damian

Notepadd++ is a free download and makes life a whole lot easier if you’re going to be coding or making many edits.

I will download that now as Notepad seems to just make an unworkable continuous line in every MM file, and seeing as I will be adding more modules, and editing them, your suggestion might work better?

Oh no! You trashed the entire installation??? But it was working. That was NOT in my Complete Walkthrough.

:^)

Yeah, your guide did indeed work, I just overlooked the obvious that I’m back on a PC, with a fresh win7 install, and need to allocate what opens what first. I was just way too excited to see MM through a PC, my brain was far too much on the end game :-(

Thanks again for your help.

Edit:
Notepad++
Brilliant, just brilliant. :-)

Mykle1

@Damian said in Complete Walkthrough - Install MagicMirror on a PC - Windows 7:

Yeah, your guide did indeed work, I just overlooked the obvious that I’m back on a PC, with a fresh win7 install, and need to allocate what opens what first. I was just way too excited to see MM through a PC, my brain was far too much on the end game :-(

Been there. Done that. No worries.

Thanks again for your help.

You’re welcome, mate. Cheers!

Edit:
Notepad++
Brilliant, just brilliant. :-)

There are other text editors for coding (my son uses Atom) but I have taken a liking to Notepad++. I think it’s safe to say that you’ll enjoy it too.

Enjoy your PC/mirror.

luizcarlosnery

Hello mykle1,
I followed your guide in: https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/4231/how-to-add-modules-for-absolute-beginners, however my problem is not installing modules, I can install almost all, but some do not work … like, voice-control and play-music for ex …
Remembering that I’m following your guide complete-walkthrough-install-magicmirror-on-a-pc-windows-7-10
My MagicMirror is in Windows 7 64Bits.

Thank you so much.

Mykle1

@luizcarlosnery said in Complete Walkthrough - Install MagicMirror on a PC - Windows 7/10:

some do not work … like, voice-control and play-music for ex …

So, based on your comments I can assume that your MM software is up and running. Some modules are a bit more complicated than others to get working. Perhaps voice-control and play-music are 2 such modules. I don’t use them so I am unable to help you with them. Pay particular attention to the README files that come with them.
You can post another topic in TROUBLESHOOTING and ask for help there. Hopefully, someone with experience with those modules can help you.

barnosch

great tutorial. Will give it a try later on.
I made the complicated way around it and created a VirtualMaschine with Debian, with a standalone MM installation.

This natively running thing is way better. Thanks

Mykle1

@barnosch said in Complete Walkthrough - Install MagicMirror on a PC - Windows 7/10:

great tutorial. Will give it a try later on.
I made the complicated way around it and created a VirtualMaschine with Debian, with a standalone MM installation.
This natively running thing is way better. Thanks

You’re welcome.

Yes, MM runs beautifully on a PC running windows. Alternately, if you prefer Linux, you can install uBuntu on a PC. That also runs beautifully.

barnosch

Runs perfect on a Win 10 x64.
One thing for me is, i don’t like the fullscreen, because i want to test some stuff before i bring it to the real MM.
Try instead of
“npm start” a
“node serveronly”
This launches the MM not in full screen. You can point now to your browser and type
localhost:8080
This will show your MM installation in your favourit browser.
In my case, the better option :)

Wominator

Hi Mykle1!
Great job! I installed it on an older Lenovo Miix 8 tablet as my “kitchen mirror” and it works smooth.
Have you or anyone else tried to make a “start.bat” or something like that to auto start it with windows or by a shortcut on the desktop?
That would be a great improvement.
Thanks in advance and regards
womi

Mykle1

@Wominator said in Complete Walkthrough - Install MagicMirror on a PC - Windows 7/10:

That would be a great improvement.

Well, I never did, but you can try this. I can’t test at the moment, but it should work. Save this as a .bat file and put it on your desktop.

:: This should work if this bat file is on the desktop
:: Also, CMD window needs ability to run bash commands (done during install of GIT)

:: Start CMD window
start cmd.exe /k

:: cd back one directory
cd ..

:: cd to MM directory
cd MagicMirror

:: start MM
npm start

Wominator

@Mykle1
Hi!
Thanks for the quick reply!
It didn’t work out that way. I found a documentation on:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21564275/windows-shortcut-to-run-git-bash-script

So, I generated a script C:\Users\USER\npmstart.sh with

cd ..
cd ~/MagicMirror
npm start

Afterwards I generated a shortcut on the desktop with following path:
"C:\Program Files\Git\bin\sh.exe" -l -i "C:\Users\USER\npmstart.sh"

And it works. It starts the Bash and runs MagicMirror and leaves the Bash open in the background, so I can get back to it by pressing the Windows-Button. (remember, I run the MagicMirror on a tablet without keyboard and mouse)
In the Bash, I can stop MagicMirror with the onscreen keyboard by pressing Ctrl+C.

Regards
womi

Mykle1

@Wominator

Well done!

Henrik

@Mykle1 Fantastic, thanks!

Mykle1

@Henrik

You’re welcome, mate! Enjoy your mirror. :-)

Peace!

Henrik

@Mykle1 I fully am. :) Now the time has come to develop my first module.

djsunrise19

I switched from raspberry to a mini-itx windows10 system, too. With my raspy system I had way too much performance issues. Thanks for your walkthrough, it works really well. But, modules like MMM-voice or Hello Lucy won’t work, am I right? That would be too bad :/.

Henrik

@djsunrise19 Maybe a bit late, but are you sure the performance issues were not caused by the incompatible Electron version? That seems to have been fixed in the latest MM (by downgrading Electron).

Anyway, MMM-voice should work, but it’ll probably be a lot of hassle to get it going!

djsunrise19

@Henrik No, I tried a lot of electron versions, a lot of raspberries, ATB, odroids. I created that electron topic :-D. I like it smooth, none of them was. All in all I have to say, that electron seems to be the problem. The renderer / the performance is too bad. Within chrome only, the website runs super smooth. With electron its a huge difference. Even under windows (8GB RAM, G4600 CPU), electron doesn’t perform like chrome does. But it’s okay, and expensive, :-D. MagicMirror V1 was a website only. Way better than V2 with the electron framework (only the performance aspect).

Perhaps @Mykle1 has an idea for MMM-voice under windows?

Mykle1

@djsunrise19 said in Complete Walkthrough - Install MagicMirror on a PC - Windows 7/10:

Perhaps @Mykle1 has an idea for MMM-voice under windows?

The problem with MMM-voice under windows is dependencies. The installer script will not work under Windows, only Raspbian or linux. So, unless you can install the dependencies independent of the installer, you’re out of luck. I don’t even know if the dependencies are available for Windows. I never really tried to find out. Let me know if you do.

Now that you are running on a mini-itx board, you do have some options. You could make it a dual boot machine, which is fairly simple. One side Windows, one side ubuntu. Then you can run MMM-voice with Hello-Lucy like a champion.

djsunrise19

@Mykle1 Thank you! First I installed ubuntu (and ubuntu mate) on that system. But there were some graphic-issues (f.e. marquee-fx in display-rotate mode looks very awful) and my microphone doesn’t work. I checked 4 or 5 of them. I thought, MMM-voice works with windows as well.

After that I decided to go with windows. It works pretty well. More performant than ubuntu. There is only one problem: Each 10min (or something like that) there are very much git processes within the electron process (cpu usage is 70% for a few seconds, windows antivirus checks something too; MM2 lags a little bit). Don’t know why. Do you have the same with your windows environment?

Mykle1

@djsunrise19

I am no longer running MM on Windows. It doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve become a huge fan of ubuntu. I would recommend finding the version that works best for you. It takes a little time but it’s worth it. For me, ubuntu 16.04 is rock solid and works on every machine I’ve installed it on. I had some trouble with earlier and later versions.

IMHO, for MM, ubuntu is the way to go. You might have some trouble initially but once you find the right combination you’ll be happy with it. And hey, I think you can rotate the screen from inside ubuntu preferences. I have 2 microphones. One usb and one 3.5mm jack version. Both work with no issue under ubuntu. Even the laptops I use with ubuntu have no issue with the integrated microphones.