Q. Machine has Windows 98 - Safe Mode runs OK, but if I boot normal it hangs at startup. The machine has an internal modem, a sound card, and a network card. A. When you boot a machine in Safe Mode, it does not load the driver for the network card. This leads us to think that the network card is not being configured properly. We would suggest that you remove the network card, sound card and perhaps the modem and then make sure that the machine boots normally. Then re-install the cards, one card per boot. When you boot, hit the F8 key (the way you would normally request a Safe Mode start) but select the "Logged" option. This will create a file named BOOTLOG.TXT which records the steps in the startup process. For each step and sub-step, you will get starting - step description and ending - step description with intervening status messages. If you lock up, restart the machine in Safe Mode, then examine the file and find either error messages, or a step that started but didnt complete. Q. Windows 98 - Camedia software came with my digital camera - it insists on looking at the A: drive, which, since there isnt a diskette in the drive, causes the machine to wait until the drive times out. If I have a blank floppy in the drive, then everything is fine. A. Several others reported using the same editing package (it comes with Olympus cameras) without seeing that problem. Some applications, such as Windows Explorer, have sticky settings where they will remember what folder you were in last - try forcing it to a different folder and then exit. Also, take a look at the shortcut, and see if changing the "Start In" folder to a non-blank value. Q. I have a new Dell machine, it came with Microsoft Picture pre-installed. I have used it a few times, and it seems to work OK, but when I exit the program I get a blue screen - the crash reports a problem with Kernel32. From there on the machine is locked up - I have to boot the machine. Any suggestions? A. Kernel32 is the heart of Windows - some program instruction in Picture made an impossible-to-handle request, and it caused the crash. Do the usual clean up of your temp directory. You might try to uninstall the application and then re-install it. Also check to see if there are patches available from Microsoft. Call Dell and see if they have any patches. Q. Adobe Acrobat Distiller - can I control where to put the output? A. Yes, it is in the Preferences section. Q. I have a fax modem (U.S.Robotics 56K with software). I am told that it sends the first few lines and then garbage. Is there a standard way to test the operation of the fax modem? A. First, you might want to test the quality of your line. Here is a site (it is not a free call) that will let you connect using HyperTerminal which is an application bundled with Windows. Follow the directions at this page: http://206.222.80.60/linetest.htm (You will need to print it out, since you cant be connected to the internet while you are doing the test.) You want a number in the range of 0 to 20. If you have 30 or above, it is time to call the telephone company repair service to have them examine the lines condition. Once you have a clean line, arrange with some friends/associates to exchange some test faxes. Try to work with both fax modems as well as with real fax machines. Note that it is common for connections using fax modems to end their sessions abruptly - they often dont bother with the formal send completed exchange. Q. I have a Dell machine, Pentium processor, running Windows. It takes forever to shutdown - sometime hours. Any suggestions? A. Windows wont shutdown until it has closed all applications and device drivers. When you select SHUTDOWN from the Start menu, the shutdown application sends a message to all applications and devices - then waits for all to respond. If an application or device doesnt respond that it has closed - the system will seemingly hang. Fortunately, the shutdown message is delivered to all applications and devices at once, and they shutdown independently - one doesnt have to wait for another. If you have waited a reasonable amount of time - say 15 seconds - and the machine hasnt shutdown, and the hard disk activity light has gone out and has stayed out - you may power off. Here are some things to look into: One notorious culprit is Norton AntiVirus - it can be set to scan the A: drive upon shutdown. Why would you do this? Because if there is a floppy diskette in the drive when you power up next, the standard configuration for PCs is to try to boot from the diskette - which could introduce a virus into the system. Unfortunately, for some reason it doesnt detect that the drive is empty. Few people make extensive use of diskettes any more. If you do use floppy disks, do the following : In your machines CMOS SETUP (typically you get this by pressing DEL or F1 when you first turn on the machine, way before Window starts) you can change the boot sequence so that it doesnt look at the floppy drive. Should you ever really need to boot from the floppy drive, you can always change it back. Then, since you will no longer be able to accidentally boot from the floppy, go into Norton Anti-Virus and tell it not to check the A: drive on shutdown. There is a patch for Windows 98 SE available from the Microsoft Windows Update service. Download it and install it. You mentioned that you are running Norton SystemWorks. We recommend that you only run it when you want to examine a specific problem, that you do not run it in the background at all times (which is the default configuration.) It is a very resource intensive application that can really bog down your machine. Sure, it is nice to know that you have filled up your hard disk, but you can tell that pretty easily just by looking at the properties of the drive in My Computer or by right-clicking the drive in Windows Explorer - perhaps once a week. All of the Norton System Works applications attach to Windows - and thus could be keeping it from shutting down. If you want to find out if it is an application that is causing a problem, you could do some experimenting: Use Ctrl-Alt-Del to wake up the Windows Task Manager. You will see a list of applications. There are only two applications that need to be running for the machine to be running - Explorer and SysTray. All of the rest may stopped (deleted from the current task list) by selecting "End Task." I have found that it helps to hold the mouse button down on the End Task button. The task (and Task Manager) will then go away. You might get a warning that the application is not responding (a pretty good sign that you have found the culprit). After you remove a task (or several) try to shutdown and see if the shutdown is clean. If so, you have found the culprit. Note: Microsoft has confused the issue by having a minimum of three different things called Explorer. First there is "Explorer" - this is also known as the Windows shell - and is the heart of the Graphic User Interface (GUI) of Windows. It shows up in the Task Manager as "Explorer." This is the program that paints your desktop, puts the task bar with the Start Button, etc. on the screen. Then there is Windows Explorer, which is the application that displays your computers disk drives, network connections, contents of drives, folders, etc. It shows up in the Task Manager as "Exploring C:\somefolder" etc. Lastly, there is Internet Explorer which is used for browsing the web, etc. It shows up in the Task Manager as "current web page title - Internet Explorer". If you find that there is an application that starts automatically that is causing the problem, and it is something that you dont really use a lot, you might consider installing one of my favorite utility programs - StartStop - it gives you control over what things get loaded when you start the machine. It gives you a five second (default, you can change it) window of opportunity to change what starts - you can save your preferences and then override them by hitting the Esc key during the StartStop window. You can get it free from www.tfi-technology.com/startstop.htm. There is a similar utility in Windows 98 and Windows Me, but StartStop will work with any of the Windows versions. |
Bruce Preston is president of West Mountain Systems, a consultancy in Ridgefield, CT, specializing in database applications. Members may send queries to Bruce at askdacs@aol.com. Responss will be published in the next issue of dacs.doc. |