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Back to Campus - Computer Life (Ziff-Davis)(1995).ISO
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techhelp.txt
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1995-05-01
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Shanghai: Great Moments
Introduction
Thank you for purchasing Shanghai: Great Moments. We have included the following
supplemental documentation to assist you in the event of any problems during the installation or
running of the program. It contains additional technical tips that were not printed in the original
Shanghai: Great Moments documentation and should be considered a part of this program
documentation.
This document is arranged in the following sections:
Customer Support Bulletins
System Requirements
Before You Install
Changes To Your System
Running the Game
System Tune-up
Improving System Performance
Troubleshooting
Windows, Win32s and WinG Troubleshooting
Sound or Video Problems
DVA.386 File
Networks
Questions & Answers
Hardware Manufacturers
System Manufacturers
Sound Card Manufacturer List
Video Card Manufacturers
CD-ROM Manufacturers
Customer Support Bulletins
The information contained in this document is the latest information Activision has on this
program to date. In an effort to keep you informed on any further developments with our games,
Activision has created Customer Support Bulletins. These files contain updates on the latest
technical information that may affect our programs. Look for these files on our support areas on
various on-line services.
System Requirements
The minimum system requirements for Shanghai: Great Moments are:
IBM PC or 100% compatible
486/33 MHz or faster
8 MB RAM
Double-speed CD-ROM drive (300K bps)
Hard disk drive with 12 MB available
256 color SVGA Windows drivers (640x480 or higher)
MS-DOS"/PC-DOSª 6.0 or higher
Microsoftª Windowsª 3.1
Mouse
Sound Blaster or 100% compatible sound card with Windows driver
NOTES:
You must have the latest Windows drivers for your sound and video card. If you have any
problems running the program, older sound or video drivers are the most likely cause.
Please see the Hardware Manufacturers section of this document for more information on
where to obtain the latest sound and video drivers.
You need a permanent swap file at least 10 MB in size. For more information on creating
permanent swap files, please consult your Windows manual and the additional System
Tune-up information in this document.
Windows NT 3.1, Windows NT 3.5 and Windows 95 are not supported at this time.
Before You Install
As with most programs installed into the Windows environment, certain files are modified and
can be difficult to restore to their original state. In the event you want to restore your Windows
environment to the way it was before installing this program, we suggest you back up your
Windows directory and the Windows System directory. It is in general a good practice to back up
your hard drive from time to time. Please consult your DOS or Windows manual for more
information on backing up your system.
The installer will make a backup of two key Windows files, WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI, and create
a log of the changes it makes to your system. The backup files are called WIN.SGM and
SYSTEM.SGM; the log file is called SHGM.LOG. These files can be found in your Shanghai:
Great Moments directory, which is usually C:\SHGM. While these are created to provide you with
a quick means of restoring your system, they are by no means a substitute for a full backup of
your software. We highly recommend that you perform a full system backup before installing
ANY program.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you install Shanghai: Great Moments a second time, the .SGM backup
files will be overwritten by the Windows configuration created the first time you installed the
program and your original .INI files will be lost. We highly recommend that after you install the
program for the first time, you copy these files to a floppy disk for safe keeping, should you wish
to return to this configuration once you have installed Shanghai: Great Moments.
Please keep in mind that as you install other Windows software on your system that also make
changes to the WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI files, these backup files created by our program will
become unnecessary. These files are only for an emergency situation during the installation of
Shanghai: Great Moments or within the first day or two after installation. For instance, if your
system will not run properly after the game is installed, you have a means to restore your old
system quickly. If your system continues to function properly after Shanghai: Great Moments is
installed, then you will most likely never need to restore these old .INI files. In fact, as you install
other Windows software on your system, it would be undesirable to return to the old
configuration, since it might cause your newly installed programs to stop functioning properly.
In addition to backing up your system, we strongly recommend that you install and run the
program under the following conditions.
Before installing, close all other applications.
Make sure you have the following statements in your CONFIG.SYS file. Win32s setup may
fail if you do not:
FILES=50
BUFFERS=30
If at any time you receive an Error 4 message, try increasing the FILES= line in increments
of five. (Example: FILES=50 to FILES=55) Then reboot your machine and try again.
Make sure your color resolution in Windows is 256 colors. Shanghai: Great Moments will
only install on a system set to 256 colors.
Do not install this program to a shared network copy of Windows. The program needs to
make changes to the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory that are not possible under shared
network conditions.
Do not install if you are using Windows NT or Windows 95. While the program may function
on these versions of Windows, they are not supported, and you may experience problems.
We do not recommend using Shanghai: Great Moments with Windows NT or Windows 95 at
this time.
For proper installation and best performance, make sure you are running Windows in 386
Enhanced Mode with at least a 10 MB permanent swap file. For more information on
creating permanent swap files, please consult your Windows manual and the additional
System Tune-up information in this document.
We do not recommend installing this program to a compressed drive. If possible, please
install to a non-compressed drive and run the program from there. If you do need to install to
a compressed drive, the disk space requirements listed above are 24 MB of free disk space
rather than 12 MB.
Before installing the game, you should first disable any alternative Windows desktop shells
(PC Tools for Windows, Norton Desktop for Windows, Dashboard, Kids Desk, etc.) other
than Windows Program Manager, and then run the program from the Program Manager.
Please refer to the documentation for your Windows desktop shell for more information on
disabling it, or running Program Manager while using it.
Changes To Your System
Q: So, the game is installed on my system now. What changes have been made to my
Windows setup?
A: We're glad you asked. Since Shanghai: Great Moments uses the new Win32s and WinG
libraries to give you the ultimate multimedia Shanghai experience, many changes had to be
made to your Windows setup in order for the game to run. In the next couple of paragraphs we
will describe those changes to you.
First, there were three new directories created on your hard drive. Those directories are
C:\SHGM, C:\SHGM\DATA and C:\WINDOWS\WIN32S (We are assuming that you used the
default directories when you installed Windows and Shanghai: Great Moments). The SHGM
directory contains the necessary files to run Shanghai: Great Moments and the DATA directory
contained within the SHGM directory is where the various tile sets and animations used in the
game will be decompressed to as you play. The WIN32S directory in your WINDOWS directory
stores the new Win32s extensions we added to your Windows setup. A fourth directory,
C:\SHGMTEMP may be left on your hard drive after installation is complete. Please delete