dacs.doc electric

Random Access

Instant Replay: January 2000

Bruce Preston, Moderator

Q. I have Windows Explorer in my Windows 98 StartUp folder. With some frequency it starts up two copies. I have checked, there is only one shortcut in the folder, plus another on the desktop. What is causing this?

A. Windows remembers what windows were open when you shutdown the machine - for example, you will often see the control panel folder after you do an installation because the control panel was open. We guess that you hadn't closed the copy of Windows Explorer when you shut down the machine, so you got two on machine startup - the copy that was running, and the copy that was started from the StartUp folder.

Q. I had to reformat a hard disk, and used the FDISK and FORMAT from DOS 6.1. It created four 2GB partitions. I have a four-year-old copy of Partition Magic. Can I use this to create a single partition before I install Windows 98?

A. If you create an emergency boot disk from Windows 98, you can FDISK and FORMAT from this version. It will support 32-bit access and larger partitions.

Q. My machine comes up as the right month, day, but the year 2094. I can change it to the year 2000 without a problem, and programs work fine. I'd like to automate this. I'd like a way to have the year changed to 2000 automatically.

A. Since the entire date has to be entered at the DOS level, it isn't likely that you can do this without some programming to extract the correct month and day but substitute the year. In BASIC, you could to the following:

Dim MonthDay As String
MonthDay = Mid$(Date,1,5) ' get just the month, the slash, and the day
Date = MonthDay & "/" & "2000"

You would then just have to change the 2000 to 2001 come Jan 1st of next year.

Q. Last month I checked my old machine, and it was able to store dates in year 2000. When I first started the machine, it reported that it was January 4, 1980. Is this a bug in Windows?

A. No, it is a hardware problem. Certain BIOS code is able to work with the year 2000 and on, but isn't able to "roll over" from 1999 to 2000. Set the date and shutdown the machine. You will probably be OK. But beware that you may have a problem come Feb 29, 2000 as well. You can do a full test that will surface other latent problems by running the "Ymark2000" test. There is a link to it on the DACS Website.

Q. Did anyone have a "real" Y2K problem other than that older machines didn't roll over correctly?

A. One person reported a network printer that kept spewing out multiple copies, the driver wasn't recording the completion time correctly. Other than that, it was pretty much a big yawn.

Q. I can't print from my e-mail application - Outlook Express 4.72, but I can print from Internet Explorer 5.0, and all other applications. I think the problem started when I installed AOL 5.0.

A. Save your address book and mailbox, then re-install Outlook Express. We have had users who have had their address books blown away when components of Office 2000 are installed, for example, a user decided to install Access 2000 on a machine running Office 97. The install put Outlook Express on as well, and overwrote his old address book and mailboxes.

Q. My grandchildren use AOL and sent me a photo they took with a digital camera to me via the Internet, and I get an icon in the e-mail text area. When I click on it, I get a message that says, "Image cannot be displayed." What am I doing wrong?

A. There are several possibilities: a) If they are using AOL, they should not use the "Send Picture" button because this is an AOL proprietary scheme that only another AOL account would be able to read. Instead, they should attach the image to the message. b) Some digital cameras use a proprietary file format that is readable only by the software provided by the camera vendor. If that is the case, then they should use the camera-provided software and convert it to one of the standard formats. A very good one is JPEG (.JPEG or .JPG), since it does a very good job of compressing images for transmission over the Internet.

Q. I just purchased a very large and fast hard drive to add to my machine, which is running Windows 98SE. Can I copy the contents of the old drive to the new drive, change the cables, and make this one the boot drive?

A. It isn't quite that simple. The drive has to be marked as "active," which means "bootable," and it has to be a "master" drive. The marking is done via software, and the "master/slave" setting is a jumper on the drive. Interestingly, you don't have to change the data cables at all. Some of the hard drives ship with a diskette with software that will clone the old drive to the new drive for you, just as you are planning. I believe that "EZ Drive" or "Max Blast" software are examples. Check the FAQ page for your drive manufacturer for details. PowerQuest's Drive Copy will do this as well.

Q. I have a drive from an old machine that ran Windows 3.1, it is loaded in a removable drive tray. When I put it in the machine, Windows won't boot. It complains about an incompatible drive access mode. The drive supports 32-bit access mode, and it is marked as such in the BIOS when I check it.

A. When you install Windows 3.1, based upon the answers that you supply to the setup program, as well as what the setup program detects, the base component (known as the kernel) of Windows was created. One of the things that got detected was the capability of your hard disk controller. In the new machine when you insert the old drive via the tray, you are using a different disk controller, and it is not responding in the way that Windows 3.1 expects it to respond, so the Windows 3.1 load fails. To use this drive in the Windows 3.1 environment, you probably have to a) set the BIOS to 16-bit access, and b) remove the line in the WIN.INI or SYSTEM.INI that refers to 32bit access. I believe that it was something like "Enable32bitAccess=1"

Random Access

Instant Replay: January 2000

*Bruce Preston, Moderator*
Q. I have Windows Explorer in my Windows 98 StartUp folder. With some frequency it starts up two copies. I have checked, there is only one shortcut in the folder, plus another on the desktop. What is causing this? A. Windows remembers what windows were open when you shutdown the machine - for example, you will often see the control panel folder after you do an installation because the control panel was open. We guess that you hadn't closed the copy of Windows Explorer when you shut down the machine, so you got two on machine startup - the copy that was running, and the copy that was started from the StartUp folder. Q. I had to reformat a hard disk, and used the FDISK and FORMAT from DOS 6.1. It created four 2GB partitions. I have a four-year-old copy of Partition Magic. Can I use this to create a single partition before I install Windows 98? A. If you create an emergency boot disk from Windows 98, you can FDISK and FORMAT from this version. It will support 32-bit access and larger partitions. Q. My machine comes up as the right month, day, but the year 2094. I can change it to the year 2000 without a problem, and programs work fine. I'd like to automate this. I'd like a way to have the year changed to 2000 automatically. A. Since the entire date has to be entered at the DOS level, it isn't likely that you can do this without some programming to extract the correct month and day but substitute the year. In BASIC, you could to the following: Dim MonthDay As String MonthDay = Mid$(Date,1,5) ' get just the month, the slash, and the day Date = MonthDay & "/" & "2000" You would then just have to change the 2000 to 2001 come Jan 1st of next year. Q. Last month I checked my old machine, and it was able to store dates in year 2000. When I first started the machine, it reported that it was January 4, 1980. Is this a bug in Windows? A. No, it is a hardware problem. Certain BIOS code is able to work with the year 2000 and on, but isn't able to "roll over" from 1999 to 2000. Set the date and shutdown the machine. You will probably be OK. But beware that you may have a problem come Feb 29, 2000 as well. You can do a full test that will surface other latent problems by running the "Ymark2000" test. There is a link to it on the DACS Website. Q. Did anyone have a "real" Y2K problem other than that older machines didn't roll over correctly? A. One person reported a network printer that kept spewing out multiple copies, the driver wasn't recording the completion time correctly. Other than that, it was pretty much a big yawn. Q. I can't print from my e-mail application - Outlook Express 4.72, but I can print from Internet Explorer 5.0, and all other applications. I think the problem started when I installed AOL 5.0. A. Save your address book and mailbox, then re-install Outlook Express. We have had users who have had their address books blown away when components of Office 2000 are installed, for example, a user decided to install Access 2000 on a machine running Office 97. The install put Outlook Express on as well, and overwrote his old address book and mailboxes. Q. My grandchildren use AOL and sent me a photo they took with a digital camera to me via the Internet, and I get an icon in the e-mail text area. When I click on it, I get a message that says, "Image cannot be displayed." What am I doing wrong? A. There are several possibilities: a) If they are using AOL, they should not use the "Send Picture" button because this is an AOL proprietary scheme that only another AOL account would be able to read. Instead, they should attach the image to the message. b) Some digital cameras use a proprietary file format that is readable only by the software provided by the camera vendor. If that is the case, then they should use the camera-provided software and convert it to one of the standard formats. A very good one is JPEG (.JPEG or .JPG), since it does a very good job of compressing images for transmission over the Internet. Q. I just purchased a very large and fast hard drive to add to my machine, which is running Windows 98SE. Can I copy the contents of the old drive to the new drive, change the cables, and make this one the boot drive? A. It isn't quite that simple. The drive has to be marked as "active," which means "bootable," and it has to be a "master" drive. The marking is done via software, and the "master/slave" setting is a jumper on the drive. Interestingly, you don't have to change the data cables at all. Some of the hard drives ship with a diskette with software that will clone the old drive to the new drive for you, just as you are planning. I believe that "EZ Drive" or "Max Blast" software are examples. Check the FAQ page for your drive manufacturer for details. PowerQuest's Drive Copy will do this as well. Q. I have a drive from an old machine that ran Windows 3.1, it is loaded in a removable drive tray. When I put it in the machine, Windows won't boot. It complains about an incompatible drive access mode. The drive supports 32-bit access mode, and it is marked as such in the BIOS when I check it. A. When you install Windows 3.1, based upon the answers that you supply to the setup program, as well as what the setup program detects, the base component (known as the kernel) of Windows was created. One of the things that got detected was the capability of your hard disk controller. In the new machine when you insert the old drive via the tray, you are using a different disk controller, and it is not responding in the way that Windows 3.1 expects it to respond, so the Windows 3.1 load fails. To use this drive in the Windows 3.1 environment, you probably have to a) set the BIOS to 16-bit access, and b) remove the line in the WIN.INI or SYSTEM.INI that refers to 32bit access. I believe that it was something like "Enable32bitAccess=1"

Bruce Preston is president of West Mountain Systems, a consultancy in Ridgefield, CT, specializing in database applications. A DACS director and moderator of the Random Access segment at the monthly general meetings, Bruce also leads the Access SIG. Members may send tech queries to Bruce at askdacs@aol.com. Responses will be published in the next issue of dacs.doc.