Sunday, March 21st, 2010...8:26 pm
Making Nike+ Utility Work in 64-bit Windows 7 (and probably Vista too)
I purchased a Nike+ SportBand the other day and was excited to get started with it. I knew I needed to install the Nike+ Utility on my computer in order to be able to configure it, so I set out to do that. I followed the instructions, but nothing happened. A brief bit of googling turned up the startling revelation that the utility would not work in x64 Windows. There had been no marking on the package to indicate this inconvenient truth, but there it was. Forum post after forum post, some from Nike employees, indicated that it wouldn’t work.
I also noticed a few people who mentioned that they had it working, but they didn’t really offer much advice on how I might do the same. Knowing that someone had it working was enough to goad me into trying it for myself, though. And voila, I got it to work. Here then are the steps I took in Windows 7 Ultimate (64-Bit). I have no reason to think this won’t work in other versions of 64-bit Windows 7 and Vista:
- Install the Nike+ Utility. Download it from here: nikeplus.com/downloads
- Once installed, locate the utility in the Start menu:
- Right-click the Nike+ Utility and choose ‘Properties’ and choose the ‘Compatibility’ tab. Select the choice to ‘Run the Program in compatibility mode for:’ and choose ‘Windows XP SP2.’
- Next, and this is important, insert the SportBand into an available USB port.
- The Nike+ Utility should appear now on your screen, but if it doesn’t, look down in the toolbar and find the little Nike icon. Right-click ‘Hide Nike+ Utility’ and then Right-click again and choose ‘Show Nike+ Utility’. For some reason, this sometimes helps it appear on my computer.
- That’s really it.
Now, I can’t really fix the steaming pile of Flash that is the Nike Plus site. Luckily, I don’t need to. I’ve set my account at MapMyRun.com to sync runs over from my nike account, so I shouldn’t really have to visit the site.
4 Comments
May 6th, 2010 at 10:29 am
Hi there,
I stumbled upon your page while searching ways to make the Nike sportband work – but so far no luck and thought I would ask in case.
I’m using a netbook w/ Windows 7 and reached till Step 3, selecting windows XP sp2. But I dont see it in the taskbar/toolbar and when I tried pinning it to the taskbar and click on the Nike icon, it still doesnt pop up. I’ve tried it on an XP machine and no luck too. I get as far as installing but when I put the watch into the USVB port, nothing pops up. I keep thinking this can’t be this complicated, but…
It’s frustrating, so sorry to write about this but it is driving me mad…
Thanks,
Johanna
May 6th, 2010 at 11:44 am
@Johanna No problem, I’m happy to try to help. The first thing I would try is plugging the sportband into a USB port and trying to open the app manually. By this I mean, find it in the start menu (searching for ‘nike’ does it for me) and opening it that way. Does that get it to open on your screen?
Hopefully that works, because I don’t have many other ideas for you! Let me know, though. I’m curious how it goes.
May 20th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
I got this working on Win 7 64 bit
At first it did not work so I uninstalled the app and rebooted.
Then these steps:
- Install app.
- Convert app to open in Windows XP SP2 and as admin
- reboot
- startup app
- insert usb nike band
- this should work. new firmware was installed and at first my run was not uploaded but a few tries and it uploaded
May 21st, 2010 at 7:08 am
@JayMag Glad to hear its working for you. It looks like the update of the Nike software to v.2.0.0.33 has made some of the tricks in step 5 unnecessary, at least for me. I’m glad to see that Nike is working to improve the user experience, as it sure has left something to be desired.
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