Don't know if this is the best place to ask about this sort of stuff, but here it is:
I'm trying to design a pretty simple PCB in KiCad (a +/- 9v & +5v supply for a breadboard, using 78/79 series regulators). I'm not particularly experienced with kicad, but I've designed PCBs, components and footprints on it before. Up until now, however, I've been using it on windows xp, and as both my main and spare PCs died simultaniously, I got a new laptop running windows 8.1. While doing the supply design, I found that there's a problem with the LM78xx regulator and TO220 footprints in the library, meaning that they don't get connected correctly in the PCB design. I tried to sort this by editing the footprint and re-saving it in a new library, but I cannot create a new library, and hence cannot save the altered component. Does anyone have any idea of how to get around this? I've tried re-installing KiCad (Was rather tricky, as the windows uninstaller didn't do anything other than break the link to the actual uninstaller, which I had to then find in the program files, run, and then manually remove the leftover files, metro tiles, etc), and it didn't help.
Just to note, I’ve just sorted out a workaround for this problem. I still can’t properly create library files in KiCad, but I can do so manually, then add footprints to them.
I was trying to create a component footprint, but you need to set a library within which to save it, which for some reason the programme woulden’t properly create. I could create the library file, but I couldn’t add new components to it, or do anything with it. As a workaround, I found a library file I’d created on my old PC, opened it up in notepad, and deleted all the data, leaving just the header, footer, and empty index. I could then add the footprints to the existing file. That worked, although I’m still a bit miffed that the software doesn’t work properly on windows 8.
I’ll bookmark that uninstaller site. I don’t need it now, but I suspect I might in the future, so thanks.
It seems the KICAD has compatibility issues with the window 8 and right now I am working on windows 7 and planning to shift to window 8 but now I am scared so should I continue to use it on window 7 or should I switch to window 8?
