jaywallen

Hey, ofelas! Fancy meeting you here! Sorry, I know NOTHING about Redneck Rampage. I tried looking it up hereabouts but couldn't find it. Who would think of a sophisticated Southern urbanite like yourself playing a game with such a name! CUL8R, Jim

Hi, NT.gamer. I try not to bad-mouth software I don't know, but I have to agree with temo about the Symantec software. I don't use it (and therefore should probably keep my yap shut about it), but I have had to scrape together more client's machines than I can shake a stick at because of problems they've had with SystemWorks and Norton Utilities and NAV. I suspect that the farkled systems have resulted from misuse of those utilities, and not simply from failures in the software packages themselves. Nonetheless, when I hear some wacky story about strange behavior following defragging, the hair stands up on the back of my neck, and the next two words I'm likely to hear are "Speed Disk". That being said, the built-in defragger in W2K is not sufficient. Why? It doesn't defrag the Master File Table. Standard installs of W2K (where the setup program formats the partition as FAT, installs W2K, then converts to NTFS) give the user 512 byte clusters. That causes fragmentation of the file system as a whole, and the MFT in particular. Over time this leads to serious performance penalties. The commercial version of Diskeeper NT (from Executive Software, the people who designed the defragger that comes with W2K) is what I've used most successfully. It's not as aggressive as Speed Disk, but also not as dangerous, to my way of thinking. It can defrag the MFT, directory structures and page file at boot time. It can run continuously in the background to defrag the parts of the file system that are safe to defrag during normal operations. (Continuous defragging is an okay idea on a desktop or server system with fast drives, but not a great idea on a notebook.) O&O Defrag is well thought of by some people whose opinions I respect. And I'm sure there are other defraggers that are as good. But do get one that will defrag the MFT for you. Regards, Jim

Hi, You might find some pretty helpful people here http://go.compuserve.com/msofficeforum And the regulars there might also be able to point you toward some spe[censored]ts in Access. Regards, Jim

Hi, I have found W2K, and applications running under it, to be very stable and responsive. But I did run into an issue with OE and IE a couple of weeks ago. I traced it to an anti-virus Outlook Express plug-in. I found that email system plug-ins from THREE different anti-virus programs caused occasional non-responsiveness of IE 5.5 and a really odd problem with Outlook Express 5.5 -- that on occasion Outlook Express fails when it is closed, causing continuous hard drive access and partial CPU saturation (with some slowing of all other system functions) until the error condition is cleared. Disabling the email plug-ins (but allowing all other anti-virus software functions) eliminates the behavior. Weird! Don't know if this might have any bearing on your case, but thought I'd mention it -- just in case. Regards, Jim

I believe that's "Windows on Windows", the method by which NT runs 16 bit Windows apps. Try searching on "WOW" at Technet. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/ Are you having problems with it? Regards, Jim

Oops, sorry! HKLM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management is the key. Use the Edit menu's "Add Value" choice. The name of the value is "TrackLockedPages", and its type is "REG_DWORD". Its value should be "1". Don't forget to delete this value from the key when you're done troubleshooting. Changing the value to "0" is NOT a good idea. You might also post back with MUCH more specific information about the BSODs (and any event log errors, too). Also, tell us if you can see any pattern in the timing of these issues with respect to what tasks you're performing with the machine when they occur. Finally, you mentioned PhotoShop. This is an application with which I am unfamiliar, except for the fact that most Adobe software installs ATM, some versions of which interfere significantly with various device drivers -- particularly those for the keyboard. On systems which have been farkled by this application, Power Management is usually severely affected. I have seen cases where uninstalling Adobe products has not been enough to rid the machine of the ills caused by the little gizmo that attached itself to the keyboard driver and made it ACPI-incompatible. (Patient research would have yielded an appropriate fix in the registry, I'm sure, but these people needed to produce with their machines and just wanted to reinstall everything.) My point is: If you go through the trouble of doing a clean install of your OS this weekend, make sure that any Adobe stuff you put on that system is the very latest available. (I think they've gotten around to fixing most, if not all, of these issues.) And don't install ATM in any case, unless you absolutely HAVE to have it. My $.02. YMMV. (Truly, I know people who use these Adobe products with nary a problem, but I have also seen perfectly functioning systems reduced to rubble by ATM. I rank Norton SystemWorks -- especially the Crash Guard thingy -- in this same category.) Hope you get a fix. Regards, Jim

Anything in the Event Viewer? I'm sorry I don't know of any problems with the latest versions of Cinemaster. (The last version I used was under Win98SE, and it was a little erratic at startup.) You don't have any other DVD player software installed, do you? Regards, Jim

Hi, Kevlar. If this is STOP 0x00000076 PROCESS_HAS_LOCKED_PAGES, I think this is caused by a driver not cleaning up after an I/O operation. You should enable stack traces in the registry to enable you to identify which driver is at fault so that you can update it, if such an update is possible. Use Regedt32 to Add Value named TrackLockedPages (REG_DWORD data type with value of 1). The computer has to be restarted for this to take effect. The next time the failure occurs you should see a different BSOD like STOP: 0x000000CB (P1,P2,P3,P4) DRIVER_LEFT_LOCKED_PAGES_IN_PROCESS P1 - calling address in the driver P2 - the caller P3 - pointer to the MDL with the locked pages P4 - guilty driver's name If no replacement driver is available, or if a replacement driver doesn't fix the problem, you should probably try dropping your speed. I think that might be causing the driver to fail. BTW, when you're done with this process, be sure you remember to DELETE the TrackLockedPages entry from the registry. Don't remember where I got this information, probably JSI. I had jotted it down and used it on a troublemaking system a couple of months ago. Regards, Jim

The sole purpose for the book is to impress people. I carry big books with me everywhere to go in the forlorn hope that someone will actually believe that I've read them. The ResKits do contain lots of goodies, and it must have been a nice surprise to find them in your TechNet subscription. On the other hand, for the price of TechNet they oughta give you the danged manual, too! Regards, Jim

AFAIK there never was a defragger in NT4 or the ResKit. You can get freebies that work well on standalone systems. Might want to look at: http://www.execsoft.com/coverpage.asp http://www.sysinternals.com/ http://www.oosoft.de/index-e.html Regards, Jim

We could tell you, but then we'd have to kill you -- or at least charge you the price of the retail ResKits. Arf! No, seriously, I have read that they are the same except for the lack of a CD and book(s), but I'm not sure the source for that information was reliable. If no one comes back with a solid answer, would you like me to just post a listing of the tools??? (I only have the W2K Pro ResKit, not the Server ResKit.) Regards, Jim

Hi, Sandoval. You might try increasing the icon cache size. Use REGEDT32.EXE (NOT regedit.exe) -- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer Add Value named "Max Cached Icons" (note the spaces -- wish MS would be CONSISTENT about this! grumble, grumble) of type REG_SZ. Set it to 8000 (decimal). (Default is 500, maximum is supposedly 2000, but JSI reports that 8000 works.) Oh, and there's a freebie utility from xteq (x-setup?) which will let you set this value and tons of others. Pretty impressive for a freeware tweaker. http://www.xteq.com/products/xset/index.html You may have to restart once or twice (or change the icon size setting in Display Properties to large and then back to small) to get the new ShellIconCache file to be created and read properly. Hope this helps. Regards, Jim [This message has been edited by jaywallen (edited 02 October 2000).]

Hi, You might want to try increasing the icon cache size in the registry: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer You want to "Add Value" named "Max Cached Icons" (Note: there ARE spaces between words in this value name.) of type REG_SZ. I've seen a value of 8000 (decimal) suggested. You might have to blow away your ShellIconCache file and reboot before you see the results. Not sure this is applicable in your situation, but I've seen this course of action improve icon behaviors of various kinds, particularly corruptions. Regards, Jim [This message has been edited by jaywallen (edited 29 September 2000).]

I have a couple of personal systems with NT4 on them. With those systems I like to use Executive Software's Diskeeper Lite. (http://www.execsoft.com/coverpage.asp) It's freeware and dead simple to use. It doesn't have advanced features like background defragging, fragmentation "guard" or in-built scheduling, but it does the job on the majority of files on the system, and it does the job quickly. I use it in conjunction with two freeware utilities (Contig and PageDefrag) from Sysinternals (http://www.sysinternals.com/). Contig works great when used from an alternate boot partition on the inactive partition. I have PageDefrag run on every boot to defrag the registry hives and pagefile. I've whacked the heck out of these systems because I'm just learning Windows. Haven't had a single problem with them. I'm using Executive Software's commercial version of the defragger, DKNT, for my W2K Pro notebook because I use it as a tool for work. It's schedulable, works over networks and has a lot of advanced features that the Lite version doesn't have. Regards, jaywallen

Groovy! Please keep us posted if the Event ID 37s rear their ugly heads again, though! I found this problem with W2K to be kinda like dracula. I really needed a wooden stake to get rid of it!

Hi, Has anyone got Lightbringer to work under W2K? Installs okay, but fails immediately when I try to run it. Nothing listed in the event logs. People who wrote it say that they're "surprised" it doesn't work under W2K, but that they've never tested it under W2K either. Uh-huh. This is the only problem on this system. Other games I've used are Zork Grand Inquisitor, Zork Nemesis, Riven, Myst ME. Regards, Jim

FOLLOW-UP: I've had some time to experiment with very minor attempts to reconcile Lightbringer to running under W2K. Here are the results: 1. If I simply try to run Lightbringer under Windows 2000 by clicking on the shortcut in the Programs menu the desktop goes black, a large hourglass pointer appears, and then the game quits with the following error: Game Initialization Error. Error allocating memory for Lightbringer. Please close any running applications and try again. When I click on the OK button I am left on the desktop. 2. If I attempt to run Lightbringer by using either a Windows 98 or Windows 95 setting with the APCOMPAT utility from the Windows 2000 Support Tools (with any combination of the three switches -- "Disable Heap Manager on Windows 2000", "Use pre-Windows 2000 Temp path", and "Correct disk space detection for 2-GB+ drives") the screen never changes (no black screen or alterred cursor) and I receive the following errors in succession: Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library MSVCRT.DLL for Win32 Error: MSVCRT.DLL is not compatible with Win32s. -- and after I click on the "OK" button for that message box -- Lightbringer.exe The Application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000142). Click on OK to terminate the application. 3. In the Event Viewer, I get the recorded application pop-up message: Event Type: Information Event Source: Application Popup Event Category: None Event ID: 26 Date: 9/22/2000 Time: 8:24:47 AM User: N/A Computer: I7500 Description: Application popup: lightbringer.exe - Application Error : The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000142). Click on OK to terminate the application. 4. I have tried applying the downloadable patch (available on vendor's site) for the DVD version of Lightbringer. All results are exactly the same, whether or not the patch has been applied. 5. I have even tried using the SETWIN95 utility (found at www.ntcompatible.com) to patch both versions (original and updated) of the Lightbringer.exe. All results are exactly the same whether or not that update has been applied. 6. Applying both the update and the setwin95 patch, and testing with and without APCOMPAT results in exactly the same error conditions. 7. I even tried leaving the installation routine's default choice for installation of DirectX 6.1 checked and tested with all variables afterward, just in case something in that part of the installation procedure could provide a needed registry change. (W2K comes with DirectX 7.0a.) Again, results were exactly the same for all conditions. 8. I saw the "unable to create mouse pointer" message in the "cinit.txt" file in the lightbringer directory, so I disabled the two standard Synaptics Touchpad driver "enhancement" utilities in the HKLM / Run registry entriesin case they might be interfering. Testing for each combination of variables yielded the same results. (NOTE: I did NOT uninstall the Touchpad drivers to force the system to revert to standard Microsoft PS/2 Mouse driver configuration. I suppose there's a possibility of an incompatibility between the Touchpad drivers, or even the hardware itself, and Lightbringer. I didn't want to mess with the drivers themselves unless it was warranted. I don't like the way the touchpad behaves when it's operating under orders from the standard mouse driver.) 9. In light of the MSVCRT.DLL error messages, I tried placing a version 4.x MSVCRT.DLL file as a local copy in the Lightbringer directory along with a 0-byte text file named "Lightbringer.exe.local". (Windows mojo / voodoo to force use of local DLLs before relying on the system directory copies) Same results. I have been methodical and precise, changing only one variable at a time and rebooting after each installation / uninstallation before testing the program to see if it would run. (Hey, I'm retired. I have the time. <g> ) I've included the most pertinent system information and the contents of the "cinit.txt" file below in case they can be of help in the analysis. ---- System Information: Dell Inspiron 7500 PIII, 500 MHz, 128 MB RAM, ATi Rage Mobility P video subsystem with 8 MB Video RAM, TORiSAN DVD-ROM drive (6X). Windows 2000 Professional is working perfectly without failures or errors of any kind, other than the application popup listed in Event Viewer when Lightbringer fails to initialize. ---- Contents: of "cinit.txt" file in Lightbringer directory -- da - May 20 1999 12:28:46 memory status: load = 61 totalphys = 133677056 availaphys = 51232768 tpage = 317341696 apage = 241143808 tvirt = 2147352576 avirt = 2125131776 memory status: load = 61 totalphys = 133677056 availaphys = 51232768 tpage = 317341696 apage = 241143808 tvirt = 2147352576 avirt = 2125131776 InitClock() - using performancecounter.. oh boy! DXT::InitDD() - enumeration found 1 drivers DXT::InitDD() - guid=0 desc='Primary Display Driver' name='display' DXT::InitDD() - creating DirectDraw object... DXT::InitDD() - created DirectDraw object DXT::InitDD() - querying for DirectDraw2 interface DXT::InitDD() - got DirectDraw2 interface DXT::InitDD() - mode enumeration found 32 modes DXT::InitDD() - 320x200x8 - rgb 0x000000 0x000000 0x000000 - yuv 0x000000 0x000000 0x000000 DXT::InitDD() - 320x200x16 - rgb 0x00f800 0x0007e0 0x00001f - yuv 0x00f800 0x0007e0 0x00001f DXT::InitDD() - 320x200x24 - rgb 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff - yuv 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff DXT::InitDD() - 320x200x32 - rgb 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff - yuv 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff DXT::InitDD() - 320x240x8 - rgb 0x000000 0x000000 0x000000 - yuv 0x000000 0x000000 0x000000 DXT::InitDD() - 320x240x16 - rgb 0x00f800 0x0007e0 0x00001f - yuv 0x00f800 0x0007e0 0x00001f DXT::InitDD() - 320x240x24 - rgb 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff - yuv 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff DXT::InitDD() - 320x240x32 - rgb 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff - yuv 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff DXT::InitDD() - 400x300x8 - rgb 0x000000 0x000000 0x000000 - yuv 0x000000 0x000000 0x000000 DXT::InitDD() - 400x300x16 - rgb 0x00f800 0x0007e0 0x00001f - yuv 0x00f800 0x0007e0 0x00001f DXT::InitDD() - 400x300x24 - rgb 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff - yuv 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff DXT::InitDD() - 400x300x32 - rgb 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff - yuv 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff DXT::InitDD() - 512x384x8 - rgb 0x000000 0x000000 0x000000 - yuv 0x000000 0x000000 0x000000 DXT::InitDD() - 512x384x16 - rgb 0x00f800 0x0007e0 0x00001f - yuv 0x00f800 0x0007e0 0x00001f DXT::InitDD() - 512x384x24 - rgb 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff - yuv 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff DXT::InitDD() - 512x384x32 - rgb 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff - yuv 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff DXT::InitDD() - 640x400x8 - rgb 0x000000 0x000000 0x000000 - yuv 0x000000 0x000000 0x000000 DXT::InitDD() - 640x400x16 - rgb 0x00f800 0x0007e0 0x00001f - yuv 0x00f800 0x0007e0 0x00001f DXT::InitDD() - 640x400x24 - rgb 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff - yuv 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff DXT::InitDD() - 640x400x32 - rgb 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff - yuv 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff DXT::InitDD() - 640x480x8 - rgb 0x000000 0x000000 0x000000 - yuv 0x000000 0x000000 0x000000 DXT::InitDD() - 640x480x16 - rgb 0x00f800 0x0007e0 0x00001f - yuv 0x00f800 0x0007e0 0x00001f DXT::InitDD() - 640x480x24 - rgb 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff - yuv 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff DXT::InitDD() - 640x480x32 - rgb 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff - yuv 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff DXT::InitDD() - 800x600x8 - rgb 0x000000 0x000000 0x000000 - yuv 0x000000 0x000000 0x000000 DXT::InitDD() - 800x600x16 - rgb 0x00f800 0x0007e0 0x00001f - yuv 0x00f800 0x0007e0 0x00001f DXT::InitDD() - 800x600x24 - rgb 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff - yuv 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff DXT::InitDD() - 800x600x32 - rgb 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff - yuv 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff DXT::InitDD() - 1024x768x8 - rgb 0x000000 0x000000 0x000000 - yuv 0x000000 0x000000 0x000000 DXT::InitDD() - 1024x768x16 - rgb 0x00f800 0x0007e0 0x00001f - yuv 0x00f800 0x0007e0 0x00001f DXT::InitDD() - 1024x768x24 - rgb 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff - yuv 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff DXT::InitDD() - 1024x768x32 - rgb 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff - yuv 0xff0000 0x00ff00 0x0000ff DXT::InitDD() - display mode is 16bpp, mask is 565. we're set. gob: :open() - uanble to open gob pointers16.gob. readwrite = 0 mouseman: :open() - problems getting pointers_index initGame() - unable to create mouse pointer initGame() failed. ---- [This message has been edited by jaywallen (edited 23 September 2000).]

Hi, KJ1999. Have you seen Event ID 37 messages related to other performance counters? I suppose you've seen the tip about using the following two commands for cleaning up the "dredger": winmgmt /clearadap and winmgmt /resyncperf -p (where "p" is the process ID for WinMgmt in Task Manager) This "fix" is supposed to apply to partitions which have been updated from RC2 to commercial versions of W2K. I found that it had limited success on clean installations of W2K. But, in the end, I used the exctrlst utility to kill the perfproc.dll, and that got rid of several different types of Event ID 37 errors for me. I'd rather have the performance counter / monitoring system working properly, but I'll settle for no error messages for the time being. I think there are some ongoing issues with this part of W2K that were not addressed in SP1, and I still have seen nothing on TechNet to indicate the Microsoft is even aware of the problem. But I certainly see a fair number of messages about it on various message boards. Regards, Jim

I don't really have a clue, but I thought I'd speak up since no one else has. Did you try uninstalling then reinstalling AudioCatalyst, and any other CD-writer software? WMP7 is known to break the Adaptec writers. I suppose it's possible that it breaks others as well. The uninstall / reinstall trick works to fix Easy CD Creator and DirectCD. Unfortunately, I have nothing other than my own speculation on which to base this advice. On the other hand, it probably can't do any harm to try. Please let us know what happens. Regards, jaywallen [This message has been edited by jaywallen (edited 20 September 2000).]

This could be a number of different things. Please look in Event Viewer for errors that occur at the time of the unsuccessful logon attempt (both the system and apps logs). Let us know what errors you find there, in detail. I'm suspecting you'll see Event ID 1000 errors in there, but there are lots of other possibilities. You didn't change any EVERYONE permissions, like on the profiles folder under the system root, did you? Other stuff I know of that causes this behavior is freespace problems on the system partition, registry size exceeding max allowed, corrupted profiles, etc.

Just an additional comment in case the problem is Windows Media Player-- You may think this is hokey, but it works. I had my Adaptec Easy CD Creator and DirectCD broken by the WMP 7.0 beta install several weeks ago. I found a fix, and have since confirmed that this fix works with the regular release of WMP, too. After installing WMP and breaking the Adaptec software, you just uninstall BOTH Easy CD Creator AND DirectCD, then re-install both of them again. You don't have to forego the Adaptec plug-in for WMP like some fixes suggest. It's been working perfectly ever since on my systems. (Both the "c" versions, and the "d" versions of the Adaptec software.) Regards, jaywallen

Hi, I'm not nearly as ambitious as you, but I do hop around among 5 locations with LANs. I use NetSwitcher 3.1.8 under W2K Pro on my notebook. Very easy to use. You just set up your network settings for a specific location, crank up NetSwticher, and save that as a named profile. However, it does ask you to reboot between locations. I haven't bothered to ignore it to see what happens. It looks to me like W2K can go between places without any help from third party apps, and without any fiddling or rebooting -- as long as all locations use DHCP. Haven't tried, so don't know for sure. I hope you post back with your solution, when you find one. I'd be interested. Regards, Jim

Absitively!

Quote: Originally posted by Four and Twenty: A repair will not be needed as Win Me will not overwirte the win2k boot loader. Hey gluev please post 9.x related issues in the proper place. Hey moderators can you please move this post to the win 9.x section Four and Twenty, Thanks for that info. I'll tuck that one away, not that I expect to ever make personal use of it. It's nice of Microsoft to try to write their operating systems so that they're aware of each other these days! Regards, Jim, the grumpy old AIX guy

Hi, The reason I referred you to that link was that a) I didn't know from your message whether you were familiar with the tracing process, and I figured there's probably something wrong with the RealTek NIC drivers themselves. Just for grins, did you try other NICs? Sorry if my previous post seemed condescending. I just started visiting this forum recently. Not at all familiar with who knows what. Regards, Jim