dacs.doc electric

Random Access

Instant Replay: October 1998

Bruce Preston, Moderator

AskDACS Q. The spell check on my Microsoft Word worked fine until recently. Now when I try to use it I get the following message: "Word cannot find the grammar file MSGREN32.DLL for English (United States)." How can I fix this problem? A. Assuming that you used the defaults as far as installation directories, then Office Setup should have created the file C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft shared\Proof\msgren32.dll. On my machine, it is 1,4696KB, or about 1.5MB. If the directory C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Proof exists on your machine, then the simplest solution is probably just a matter of copying the file from some other machine into this directory. The next (and "by the book") solution would be to run the SETUP program for Office again. There should be a reinstall option, which will identify missing or corrupted files and replace them. If there isn't a reinstall option, then there is usually an ADD or REMOVE components option. Here I would suggest that you first "remove" the spell check utility to get rid of a partial installation, thus cleaning up the system so it knows the spell check has been removed. Stop the SETUP program, and then start it and "ADD" the spell check utility. One other consideration: If you are running a mixed system, meaning that you have 16-bit components from Office 4.0 (the last Windows 3.1 release) and components from Office 95 or 97, or Outlook Express, the more recent components, which require a 32-bit spelling checker, may interfere with the earlier ones. Go to the site http://www.activeie.com/ and do a search on SPELL FIX.. This will take you to some pages that may help you resolve the problem or conflicts. Lastly, if you are using Office 97, you may want to visit the Microsoft support site took us to the Service Release 2 for Office 97, which updates this file. The service release is free and is available via download (it is huge) or CD. Go to this http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q192/8/74.asp for details. Q. What's the difference between a machine with an Intel Celeron processor and an Intel Pentium II processor other than the price? A. The original Celeron processor did not have an internal cache, which made it cheaper for Intel to produce. The Pentium does have an internal cache. The cache is an area of memory within the processor chip that stores data or program instructions likely to be needed immediately. If the computer processor needs this data, it does not need to go out to the Random Access Memory (RAM), which takes a long time as far as the processor is concerned. Thus, for a given clock speed, a processor without a cache will run measurably slower than a processor with one. Market pressures have forced Intel to include a cache on the newer 300 and 333A Celeron processors, which have 128K of L2 cache -- still only about one-quarter the amount in the Pentium II processor. For demanding applications, such as those that are graphics intensive, you will need to spend the cash for the cache. For less-demanding applications, such as the consumer machines for which the Celeron is targeted, you may want to keep the difference in price. Q. I installed an application under Windows 98 that did not include an uninstall capability, so I removed it by deleting its folder and the icon from the Start Menu. Now I get a blank box on the task bar which doesn't seem to do anything. What is it? Do I need it? If not, how do I get rid of it? There is nothing in the Start Menu or Startup Menu. A. Our guess is that the application has a helper application that did not get removed. Often these helper applications, such as those that remind you to register the application, or even to offer to register it via the Internet, are used as part of the installation and are intended to be run only once . They are usually found in the Registry under the key My Computer \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce. If the application was a 16-bit application, it might have put something in the Windows WIN.INI file on the RUN= or LOAD= line. Search for these, and see if you find entries that reference the application you removed. A word of caution: If you modify the Windows 95/97 Registry, make sure that you have made a backup first. You can do this by creating an Emergency Recovery Disk using the Emergency Recovery Utility (ERU on the Windows 95 CD) or via My Computer / Control Panel / Add Remove Programs / Start Up Disk. There is also a Configuration Backup utility (CFGBACK) on the Windows 95/97 CD, which will let you create and maintain ten generations of configurations. These may have names such as "System before I installed the WIDGETS application." Note, however, that the backups are stored on your hard disk, so you must be able to get Windows to start to be able to get at them. Q. I am getting error messages that says the "size of file XXXX is wrong." What is this, what causes it, and how is it fixed? A. Usually this refers to a file in the \TEMP directory, and it is caused when a program is terminated before the file is closed properly. This results in the directory not being synchronized with the file allocation table. It can also be caused when you turn off the machine without doing a proper START / SHUT DOWN sequence. Run the SCANDISK utility (found in START/PROGRAMS/ ACCESSORIES/ SYSTEM TOOLS, or via My Computer / right click on the drive/PROPERTIES/TOOLS/ERROR CHECK). Lastly, some viruses append themselves to the end of program files but attempt to hide their presence by not updating the file size. Run an anti-virus utility against the system. Q. Does Windows NT have SCANDISK? A. Not for NTFS disks. the Microsoft documentation says it doesn't need it. But there is a tool that is accessible via Tools under the drive's Properties page, as well as some third-party utilities. Q. How can I move several applications (and all of my preferences) from a desktop computer to my new notebook computer? A. Use an uninstaller utility, and then reinstall the app on the other machine. A better way would be to install the application on the new machine from the original distribution media and then use an application such as LapLink for Windows to migrate the data files. Tell LapLink not to replace any existing files. Q. I have a new Gateway machine that runs for several days without problem, but sometimes when I start up I get a blue screen with the message "Can't access drive C:." Gateway replaced the drive controller, but it still happens. The other day I installed a screen saver, and the next morning the screen saver was in the way but the machine was locked up. Presumably, the "Can't access drive C:" was out of sight behind the screen saver. A. First, we suggested you turn off power management (which, in fact, was what Gateway had you do). Then turn off the screen saver. Then, keep track of which applications you have been running, and see if you can detect a pattern. Make sure you have the latest service patches for the operating system or applications. If this doesn't cure it, call up Gateway again, armed with this information. You might have a problem with the power supply, the motherboard, or the disk drive.