{"id":18987,"date":"2023-02-17T15:34:18","date_gmt":"2023-02-17T15:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.obd2tool.com\/blog\/?p=18987"},"modified":"2023-06-19T08:04:36","modified_gmt":"2023-06-19T08:04:36","slug":"bmw-software-faq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.obd2tool.com\/blog\/bmw-software-faq\/","title":{"rendered":"BMW software FAQ"},"content":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s the cable switch for?<\/strong>
\nOlder BMWs (like E39, E46) have the DME and EGS on pin 7 and all other modules on pin 8. Newer BMWs have all modules on pin 7. The switch connects or disconnects pins 7 and 8, which lets you use the cable with either older or newer BMWs. If your cable has no switch, soldering together the circuit board pads for pins 7 and 8 will put it in the older configuration to make it work on your E46.<\/p>\n

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Do I plug in under the hood?<\/strong>
\nIf your early model E46 has a round 20-pin under hood connector (in addition to the 16-pin under dash OBD connector), you must get an adapter like the following and plug the cable in under the hood.
\nRound 20-pin to OBD Adapter Cable
\nOn those cars only the DME (engine computer) and EGS (auto trans computer) are wired to the under dash OBD port.
\nOn later models without the round 20-pin under hood connector, all control modules are wired to the under dash OBD port.<\/p>\n

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Which laptop is best?<\/strong>
\nAny laptop that can run Windows 7 or higher is fine. The actual laptop is not very important. The CPU, drive, and display requirements are very low. I recommend to get a cheap used one from ebay and dedicate it to car software use. Needs to have one free USB port for the K+DCAN cable and at least 5GB free drive space for the software.<\/p>\n

Which Windows version is best?<\/strong>
\nI find Windows 7 is the best OS for setting up BMW software<\/a>. Why?
\n– XP: no longer supported by most software, including Chrome
\n– Vista: Are you kidding me? LOL
\n– 7: Bingo!
\n– 8: Meh, it’s a poor man’s Windows 10
\n– 10: will work fine for BMW Standard Tools, but has trouble installing BMW Scanner 1.4 device drivers<\/p>\n

Can I Run This on a Mac or in a VM?<\/strong>
\nVMs and native Windows on a Mac (boot camp) are not recommended. They may work for you stand-alone, but I have seen dramatic slowness and lagging, and flashing failures, when connected remotely. Because this guide is mainly for people who need me to connect remotely, I only recommend a native Windows 7 or 10 installation.<\/p>\n

Tool32 Doesn\u2019t Work<\/strong>
\nIf Tool32 doesn\u2019t work properly, you may need to register a DLL like so.
\n– Open administrator command prompt
\n– regsvr32 \u201cc:\\ediabas\\bin\\msflxgrd.ocx\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s the cable switch for? Older BMWs (like E39, E46) have the DME and EGS on pin 7 and all<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2078],"tags":[1669,215,1674,1672,3156,3018],"views":1412,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obd2tool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18987"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obd2tool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obd2tool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obd2tool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obd2tool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18987"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.obd2tool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18993,"href":"https:\/\/www.obd2tool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18987\/revisions\/18993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obd2tool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obd2tool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obd2tool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obd2tool.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}