Questions and Answers
SPCUG Answer Guys
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Questions and Answers
Here are highlights from recent Q&A sessions. Questions and responses have been edited for clarity and correctness.
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BROWSERS
Q: When I look at the web page for the Roseville Chapter under Internet Explorer 5 (IE5) it comes up horribly garbled with things overlaying each other. On my secondary computer, the web page comes up perfectly. If I do a printout of the page with the print command, not a screen print, the printout is also garbled. I've figured out that the font sizes are all wrong on the display. Obviously, there is some kind of a font substitution going on. Yet, when I look through the HTML, all I find are very common fonts that are on my system.
A: We ran into that a couple of times at the University. We had to remove and then re-install the IE5 fonts. We did it as a "custom" rather than as a "typical" install. We also checked the box that says, "Additional fonts".
R: Okay. But the only fonts I'm seeing in the HTML are things like Arial and Times New Roman.
A: Right, but something got corrupted. The fonts need to be re-installed. That's how we fixed the problem in our office.
Q: When I open Netscape Messenger to read my e-mail, it tries to load the Summary File first. Then it goes to my ISP to retrieve new e-mail but apparently doesn't complete this as I never get the second box that says loading new messages. It gets to exactly 58% and then I get a green Illegal Operation box. I then have to restart Netscape. I thought I had a bad Netscape but I just put in the new version 4.61 yesterday and this still happens.
A: Is the error message one that comes up in a box that tells you that you're getting an, "Illegal Operation in module so and so," with a bunch of numbers?
R: I don't recall seeing any numbers. It just says, "Illegal Operation".
A: Next time it happens, if you get the option to "Show Details," select that. You will get a window full of information. If you highlight the information, you can do a CTRL+C to capture it to the Clipboard. You can paste it from there to a word processor or e-mail message. If it's a Netscape problem and you have another way of e-mailing it, you may want to send this captured information to Netscape. Sometimes they'll have a solution for you.
A: You may have programs that aren't compatible with each other, a bad load of Netscape, or a hardware problem. There's a long list of problems that could cause this. So, to help narrow it down, get the exact error message and the information in the Details box. The fact that you get to the same percentage every time tells me that you've probably got some software corrupted. A complete un-install and re-install of Netscape may help.
R: Okay, but I didn't un-install the old Netscape. I put the new one in on top of the old one. I notice that the new Netscape has a new feature that can be used to send data to Netscape. But it has to be up and running to do that. I tried it twice but don't know if they got the data.
A: Loading it on top of the old program could be a problem.
A: It also could be trying to read the personal folders with all the old messages but getting something corrupted there.
A: If that's it, you may have to take a loss here and blow out the old messages. There could be something corrupt in those messages that just won't load.
A: Before doing that, check for a repair program. Windows 95, Windows 98, and NT, have a mailbox or inbox repair program, but it will only fix the problems on the Microsoft side. Netscape might have something similar that would repair your inbox. I'm thinking that may be your problem.
A: You also might try running Scandisk.
A: I reported problems to Netscape 18 times. The response I finally got was that the "data collection feature" was only for their use to gather data about problems.
A: There are a couple of things you can do short of either blowing away all your old messages or re-installing Netscape that may help. First, bring up Communicator (which usually starts up the Navigator component) in off-line mode. Then, click on the "Communicator" menu bar item. This will bring up a drop-down menu that will include an option labeled "Messenger". Click on that item which will start up the Messenger component to see if the problem happens in off-line mode as well as on-line mode.
If the problem doesn't happen then you probably don't have a corrupted INBOX but you do have a problem retrieving new mail from your ISP. We'll call that Scenario 1. If the problem does occur even in off-line mode then you most probably have some kind of INBOX corruption. We'll call that Scenario 2.
For either scenario, do the following:
- Exit and restart Communicator (this assumes Communicator starts in Navigator)
- Click on the "Communicator" menu-bar item and select the "Tools" menu item
- From there, click on the "Message Center" menu item. If this fails, for a Scenario 2 situation, then try the Alternate Repair Process below
- Once the Message Center window is up, highlight the "Local Mail" line and right-click on it
- From the menu then displayed, select "New Subfolder" and type in an arbitrary name such as "Binbox" (for Bad Inbox)
- At this point the actions to take diverge depending on whether you have a Scenario 1 or a Scenario 2 situation:
Scenario 1 (Messenger works in off-line mode only) continued:
- Since your INBOX is probably not corrupted, start up Messenger (click on the Communicator menu-bar item and then select Messenger).
- Once Messenger is fully open, select ALL of the messages from your INBOX folder and move them to the new folder you defined in step 5 above.
- Now connect to your ISP and see if the problem happens with a totally empty INBOX. If so, then you need to contact your ISP to see what's wrong with the e-mail waiting for you on their mail server. If the problem doesn't happen in this case then you probably need to do some clean up of the messages that are now in your Binbox folder. Get rid of as many as possible and move the remaining messages back into your real INBOX folder. At that point you can delete your "Binbox" folder or leave it there, it's your choice. An empty folder will take up about 16K on your harddrive.
- This completes Scenario 1.
Scenario 2 (Messenger won't work in either on-line or off-line mode) continued:
- Since your INBOX probably is corrupted, we can't start up Messenger so must work from Message Center for a while.
- First, re-highlight the "Local Mail" line and right-click on it to bring up the sub-menu.
- From there, select "Mail Server Properties". This will bring up the dialog for "Preferences" with "Mail & Newsgroups" highlighted.
- Click on the "Mail Servers" item and check the setting of "Local mail directory".
- Write that value down and exit completely from Communicator.
- From the Desktop, open an MS-DOS Prompt window (Start, Programs, MS-DOS Prompt) and navigate to the same subdirectory named in the "Local mail directory" (see step d above).
- In that subdirectory, there'll be several files including one named just "Inbox" and one named "Inbox.snm". Rename each to some other name such as "InboxX" and "InboxX.snm". It's important that both files have the same file name (excluding the extention).
- Now restart Communicator and then Messenger. This will automatically redefine an "Inbox" for you but, of course, it'll be empty.
- You should, at this point, be able to connect to your ISP and retrieve any waiting e-mail without a problem. Of course, the contents of your original Inbox folder are now in "InboxX". You may be able to retrieve some of those messages by using the Message Center tool and selecting groups of messages from within that folder by using the "Search" option. You'll have to experiment with it. You can also try, from the MS-DOS prompt, making a copy of each of the InboxX files (say, InboxX2 and InboxX2.snm) and then compressing the InboxX folder. That may make the contents of that folder retrievable again using the Messenger component.)
- This completes Scenario 2.
Alternate Repair Procedure:
If you can't start either the Messenger component or the Message Center tool, then you need to start with an MS-DOS repair operation. Locate your Netscape directory by doing a find for NETSCAPE.EXE or by checking the properties of a shortcut (if one exists) to Communicator on your Desktop. Let's assume you find that NETSCAPE.EXE is located in the following directory:
C:\Program Files\Netscape\Communicator\Program
Open an MS-DOS Prompt window (Start, Programs, MS-DOS Prompt).
Type in "cd\Progra~1\Netscape\Users" and press Enter. This should put you in the named subdirectory. Type in "dir" and press Enter. This will show one subdirectory name for each profile you've defined to Communicator. Select the one you use when you connect to your ISP to retrieve e-mail by typing "cd " and pressing Enter, where is the "user name" you've selected. Then, type in "cd mail" to traverse to the "mail" subdirectory. If you then list the contents of that subdirectory you should see two files named INBOX, one with an extention of "SNM" and one with no extention. Just rename these two files to something like INBOXX and INBOXX.SNM, respectively. At this point, you can exit from this MS-DOS Prompt window and start up Communicator as you normally would. From here, proceed with step i, above, for Scenario 2.
OPERATING SYSTEMS
Q: My question is about Windows 98 and the logon screen. My dad set up his computer so he could have two different users. Now, he doesn't want that any more. How do you get rid of the logon screen?
A: Delete the "pwl" files in the Windows directory. These are password files that use the "pwl" extension. Then, the next time it asks you, don't enter any password. Just hit return.
Q: I wiped out a Windows 3.1 operating system by reconfiguring files and directories when I went into Program Manager. My files were defaulting to the C: drive and I went in to delete old files and reorganize others. I saw all these .ill and .dll files so organized them into their own directories and made other changes. The file I was working on said it was wiped and when it was rebooted, it was wiped out. I brought it back to where it wants to be reinstalled. How do I go about resetting that up? Should I just get a Setup disk and run it? Reformat the whole thing? I did try taking everything out of the directories and scattering them around, but that didn't really work.
A: Trying reinstalling Windows 3.1 right over the top of what you've got. If there's enough left of it, the reinstall will keep all of your old settings.
Q: I have a question on operating systems. I recently changed my motherboard and processor out. I then tried to load other operating systems such as NT Server, NT Workstation, and Windows 98. They all failed except for Windows 95. Is it possible that there is some kind of BIOS trouble with that?
A: That could be a problem. Usually when you get into NT Server or Workstation, you get a blue screen. Did you?
R: Yes. After I loaded it, a blue screen is the first response. Then it's an NTFS kernel error, even though I reload it several times.
A: It could actually be lots of different things. Maybe incompatible cards. Usually, with a newer, faster, motherboard the bus speed is not correct for one of the PCI cards. It's not running as fast and so you're gonna' get a blue screen. We get that a lot. So, I would try to remove all the cards you can.
R: I was told that and also that it's possible for the SD-RAM to cause a conflict. But, why would Windows 95 work but not the others?
A: SD-RAM is a possibility, but there's a whole list of possibilities. To understand why Windows 95 works, you need to understand a little about Windows 95 and Windows 98 as opposed to Windows NT. They have different compatibility requirements. Windows NT says: 'Here are the rules to program for. You have to abide by the rules.' There is no skipping or anything, you have to abide by those rules. Windows 95/98 says: 'Okay, well, it's not quite compatible but I'll let you slip by and I'll run." Because of compatibility issues with the old DOS programs and so forth, they have to have a compatibility switch. But Windows NT doesn't have it so you have to abide by the rules. It's a little more strict, a little more robust, so it has stronger rules.
Q: A friend has a hard drive with FAT-32 on it that is conflicting with a few programs. He tried to remove it several times. But whenever he formats it and actually takes it off, it re-installs itself without prompting. He has tried everything he can think of. Any ideas?
A: Partition Magic will uninstall it.
A: There's another way to go about it. Boot up under Windows 95 or Windows 98. Then remove the partition with the copy of FDISK that is included in that operating system. Reboot under DOS 6.2 or Window 95 OSR1(!). Recreate your partition and format. That should do the trick.
A: Yeah, but you should be able to just run any Windows 98 FDISK and, when it asks you the question, "Do you want FAT-32?", just say "no".
A: Yes. You're absolutely right. That might work.
R: The problem is that it re-installs itself without even asking first.
A: It's the partitioning, not the formatting, that's getting you in trouble. When you bring up FDISK, the newer versions, it asks you if you want to use the small cluster version of FDISK. If you say YES to that, you're on your way to FAT-32.
SOFTWARE
Q: I have a question about PartitionMagic, version 3, last year's version. I put it on a system with about a three gig hard drive that was half full. The partitioning went fine. I used the Uninstall Mover to change some of the program files to one of the new partitions. I then clicked on a couple of other things and got a message that said, "Are these the files you want to delete?" I didn't really want to move them quite that far. I wondered if anybody had any experience with this?
A: It apparently was a problem that a lot of people had. The next release doesn't actually delete the files until you hit update.
R: I don't think the mover is actually a Partition Magic's program. I did this a couple of weeks ago and I don't quite remember but I'm pretty sure it was a demo program that came with it. The only portion of it that was supposed to work was the move portion but it seems to want to do a little more.
A: Sorry, I can't tell you why.
Q: I've been running the latest edition of Norton AntiVirus every week. It reports to me a number, which has increased incrementally over the previous week by anywhere from a dozen to four dozen additional viruses. It is up to 42,000 now. So, when Frank Leonard recommends running an anti-virus program and checking your drives, I can really see why. I'm trying to develop the same weekly habit with Scandisk and a defragmenter program. I have a three meg hard drive which is less than half full. It takes me over an hour to defrag the hard drive. Does that mean I have a bug in my hard drive or do they just ordinarily take that long?
A: No bug. It just takes a long time. I have heard of people who actually start it at night time, go to bed, wake up in the morning, and find it still working!
Q: I am having a rather amusing problem with Visual Basic for Applications under Word 97. I open up a completely blank document, drop a command button on it, right click it, go to View Code and type some code in. Then I run it, click the button, and it works great. I save it. Then I reload it, make a small change to the document, like typing a letter in the document, and save it again saying "yes" to "Do you want to save your changes?". Then, when I load it back in again, my code is gone. And this happens over and over again without fail. What am I doing wrong?
A: First, the Office applications have Visual Basic built in. You can get to the editor through Word, Excel, any of those programs. I think that when you have a Word document open it actually keeps a secondary copy of it. So, are you actually closing it, getting out of Word, and coming back in? Yes? And that is when it wipes out?
R: Yes, I noticed it happening when I leave it at the end of the day and come back in the next day. The code's gone when I go in to make changes. I have repeated the process several time with the same problem each time. I don't get the problem with Excel 97.
A: Have you put an older version of Visual Basic on? No? Then, I don't know.
A: Have you checked for viruses?
R: I haven't been having any other problems, but I will try that.
Q: Does anybody have any pro or con information on a modem company called Action Tech? They have a new modem out they refer to as a 'call waiting modem'. You can use it with a single phone line without disabling call waiting. If a call comes in, you have seven to ten seconds after you pick up the phone to make a decision to stay on the call. If you continue the call, your ISP will eventually drop off. If you want to stay on the Internet, you can hang up but you know who called. I understand you can even put them on hold and then close down your Internet connection or you can take a minute or two to finish what you were doing before picking up the phone again. Not a total solution to the single line problem, but it's something. I have never seen any reviews. Has anyone else?
A: No. But, I'd recommend that if you get it make sure you can get your money back if it doesn't work.
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