README for Double-Deck Pinochle Version 3.6 (32-Bit Windows 95 version) Double-Deck Pinochle is Copyright (c) 1994-97 by Christopher Chapman. All rights reserved, except as provided in "Licensing and Legal Notices" below. This program is shareware ($15). It is free for you to try, but you must register it for continued and complete usage. See the file REGISTER.TXT or the program's "Help | Register" command for full information. THANK YOU FOR TRYING DOUBLE-DECK PINOCHLE! I hope this program will give you many enjoyable hours of Pinochle fun. Contents of this file 1. System requirements 2. Installing Pinochle to your hard drive automatically 3. Installing Pinochle to your hard drive manually 4. Running the program 5. Uninstalling Pinochle 6. Restoring the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM subdirectory 7. Troubleshooting 8. Licensing and Legal Notices 9. Contacting the author 1. System Requirements Pinochle requires Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. It should run on almost any computer that runs Windows 3.1. It has been reported to work on Windows NT 3.51 and NT 4.0, but I have not tested these. If you downloaded the "Pinochle36_32bit.EXE" file, then the installation requires Windows 95. Note that a Windows 3.1 version is available from http://members.aol.com/cnchapman/ The program requires an 80386 or higher processor, 2mb of extended memory, and just over 1mb of hard disk space. Recommended minimum configuration is 80486 or Pentium at 50mhz or faster, and 8mb or more of RAM. It also requires a mouse or other Windows pointing device. 2. Installing Pinochle on your hard drive automatically This version of Pinochle was designed for Windows 95. A windows 3.1 version is available separately as noted above. You may use the automatic installation if you run Windows from a local hard drive or a network with full write privileges. This should be the case unless you have an unusual system setup. If this is not the case, then follow the directions in part (3) below for a manual installation. Installation Procedure First, CLOSE ANY PROGRAMS YOU HAVE RUNNING WITHIN WINDOWS. This is a good safety precaution before you install any new programs. Now run the program PINOCH36_32BIT.EXE. This will unpack the archive files and execute the SETUP.EXE program. (If you have unpacked the archive using an unzip program, then you may choose to execute SETUP.EXE.) The Setup program will ask where you wish to install Pinochle, and will set up all required files for you. That's all. You may now enjoy the game! It is probably best if you exit and restart Windows after any program installation. 3. Installing Pinochle to your hard drive manually This option is only available with the Windows 3.1 version. 4. Running the program Simply run PINOCHLE.EXE from the Windows Program Manager, either by using the FILE | RUN ... command or by adding PINOCHLE.EXE to a program group or to the Windows 95 Start menu. If you know how to play Pinochle, then the program should be pretty self- explanatory. For more information, or to learn how to play Pinochle, check out the online help system. Select HELP | CONTENTS from the main menu. Note: If you are an experienced Double-Deck Pinochle player, this program may use a different meld system from the one you use. There are *many* different scoring systems out there. Check out HELP | MELD TABLE to see the table used by this program. Note also that you may print the default Meld Table within Windows Help. WINDOWS 95 NOTE: For users with 640x480 screens, some of the buttons in Pinochle may be obscured by the Windows 95 task bar. You may compress the vertical spacing of elements in Pinochle by selecting FILE | WINDOWS 95 MODE from the main menu. Note that this option does *not* have anything to do with Windows 95 as such; it may be used or not used according to personal taste in either Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. PORTABLE COMPUTER USERS: The screen display in Pinochle may not appear optimal on your system. In this case, it is recommended that you alter your default Windows screen color scheme. You may do this in Windows 3.1 by selecting MAIN | CONTROL PANEL | COLOR from the Program Manager. In Windows 95: right-click on the background and select: PROPERTIES | APPEARANCE. Pinochle will use the general windows settings specified by these color schemes. 5. Uninstalling Pinochle To uninstall Pinochle 3.6 (32-bit version), you should select "Start | Settings | Control Panel | Add/Remove Programs". In the Add/Remove program list, scroll down until you find "Double-Deck Pinochle". Select it, and then choose "Add/Remove". You will be asked if you wish to remove the program. Choose "Yes". When installation is complete, you may be notified that some elements were not removed. This is normal, and indicates that some system components may be used by other programs and so were not removed for safety. You may simply ignore this message. You should not delete the .DLL and .VBX files from \WINDOWS\SYSTEM, since they may be used by other programs, too. However, you may wish to read the next section on \WINDOWS\SYSTEM if you wish to delete some of those files. 6. Restoring the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM subdirectory If you uninstall Pinochle, or if you experience problems with other programs after its installation (very unlikely!), then you may wish to restore your \WINDOWS\SYSTEM subdirectory as follows. Generally, this should not be necessary, even after uninstalling the program, and we do *not* recommend tinkering with the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM subdirectory. Only follow the suggestions below if you already know what you're doing! It is always a good idea to backup your system before performing tasks like this, since a mistake could be costly! Do not attempt these tasks unless you are highly familiar with Windows installation. A. Move to the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM subdirectory B. See if any of the following backup files exist: BIVBX11.D~L CTL3DV2.D~L MHRUN300.D~L MHCARDS.D~L MHCD200.V~X C. Delete the following files: BIVBX11.DLL MHRUN300.DLL MHCARDS.DLL MHCD200.VBX D. If any backup files were found in (B.) then copy those backup files to their original file names (replace the '~' with a 'B' or 'L'). Example: COPY CTL3DV2.D~L CTL3DV2.DLL E. Once you are *sure* that everything is working properly, you may then delete the files listed in (B.) above. 7. Troubleshooting Double-Deck Pinochle has been thoroughly tested, but unfortunately problems may always exist out in the "real world"! Note that some of these troubleshooting tips involve deleting files and other "dangerous" operations. They are believed to be accurate, but I cannot vouch for every system and configuration that is out there. Make a backup first! If you are unsure about what you are doing, ask someone for help. On the plus side, however, if you get Pinochle to work properly, you are likely to fix problems with other programs at the same time! A. Fonts appear garbled This appears to occur when some other program has left garbled fonts on your computer. Here's how to fix the problem. First, make a backup! That's always a good idea in case something odd occurs. Then open the Windows Control Panels and run the Fonts Control. Inside the Fonts Control, double-click on each font one at a time, and check to see if the sample is displayed OK. If it is OK, go on to the next font. If it is garbled, then DELETE that font. Windows will use a substitute font for screen display. When you've finished and deleted the garbled fonts, close the Control Panels and restart Windows. B. Install will not run You must make sure that ALL other programs are closed before running INSTALL.EXE. Do not simply minimize the programs; choose them and then do File | Exit to terminate all other programs. Close any system monitors, networking utilities, etc. Then run INSTALL.EXE C. Check the .DLL files If you get a "General Protection Fault" when running Pinochle, then you should check your .DLL files. The .DLL and .VBX files should be moved to your \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory and should not be present *anywhere* else on your computer. This means that the DLL files should *not* be present in the subdirectory that holds Pinochle. If you ran the INSTALL.EXE file as listed above, then these files should have been placed in their proper locations. You should make sure that the files listed in the section above under "Manual Installation" are present in your \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory. Then check out your PATH by giving the PATH command at a DOS prompt. Check each of the directories specified in the Path list, and make sure that none of the DLL's listed above are present in any of those directories. If any of them *are* present, then check their file date against the dates of the files in the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory, and retain the latest copy in the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory. The following DOS commands may be useful when performing these tasks: PATH -- to list the DOS search path DIR *.DLL -- to list the DLL files in a directory CD \ -- to change to the root subdirectory DIR *.DLL /S -- to list DLL's in ALL subdirectories, after CD \ DIR *.DLL /S > PRN -- to print the above list on your printer MOVE CTL3DV2.DLL \WINDOWS\SYSTEM -- copies CTL3DV2.DLL to \WINDOWS\SYSTEM and deletes it from the current location If all of the DLL's check out OK, then you should consult the following troubleshooting tips. D. Check the Video Driver Note that some video drivers cause problems with a variety of programs. If Pinochle does not run at all, or if it gives a "General Protection Fault" then you should try using a different video driver, or update your video drivers from your manufacturer or by downloading from an online service. To determine whether the problem is with video or with another aspect of your system or with Pinochle, you may wish to try using the generic VGA or SVGA drivers from Microsoft by running SETUP from the Windows 3.1 Main program group (in Windows 95, right click on the icon for "My Computer" and select PROPERTIES | DEVICE MANAGER | MONITOR). E. Run Pinochle by Itself If you have problems that are not resolved by changing video drivers, then also try running Pinochle without any other programs running in Windows. You could have a shortage of Windows resources (memory, virtual disk space, file handles, etc.) Note that your DOS path specified in AUTOEXEC.BAT should contain the path for your Windows system. If not, Pinochle might have difficulty finding its system components. 8. Licensing and Legal Notices Pinochle 3.6 is copyright (c) 1994-97 by Christopher Chapman. All rights are reserved, except that this program in unregistered form may be distributed freely or for duplication costs only, provided that it is unaltered and that all files included in the original unregistered PINOCH35.ZIP file are included. A license to use this UNREGISTERED program is granted to any individual for a period of 15 days. The unregistered form of the program is fully functional but places a limit on the total number of unique games that may be played (25 total). Users at educational institutions, students, members and employees of the U.S. military, retired military personnel, and those employed as staff or faculty of educational institutions may continue to use the UNREGISTERED program after 15 days, although the unique game limitation will continue to apply. This program is licensed to individual users, not to companies, institutions, or other corporate entities. The registered form of the program expands the number of available unique games to 99,999,999. Otherwise, the registered and unregistered versions are identical. The registered version may be activated by one-time input of a registration available from the author upon payment of a $15 licensing fee. Registered users may use the program on any computer that they own or use routinely. For example, a single license is sufficient to allow use of the program on computers at work, at home, and on portable systems. A single license also is sufficient for all members of a household and all computers that they use, and for all users of a single properly licensed computer (e.g., co-workers sharing a single computer). However, a single license does NOT apply to: multiple computers used principally by people who live in different households, nor to any network server that makes the program available to multiple people outside of a residence, nor to non-licensed users of any computer that a licensed user only occasionally uses (e.g., a computer at work that is mostly used by others). This program is licensed to individual users, not to companies, institutions, or other corporate entities. No warranties, either express or implied, are made about this program or its fitness for any particular purpose. The author will not be liable for any direct or indirect damages that may arise from use or misuse of this program. All risk for use of this program resides with the user. Users should determine fitness for their own needs, and should register only if the program meets those needs. In no case will any liability exceed the amount paid to register this program. Also, because the program is licensed to individuals and not to companies, no liability may exist with respect to any company. The license as stated here constitutes the complete agreement between the author and user. Some states may exclude some aspects of this agreement, so user rights may vary from state to state. To register the program for complete function, follow the instructions in the online HELP | REGISTER command from within the program, or read the file REGISTER.TXT included with the program. 9. Contacting the author If you have questions or suggestiong for future versions of Pinochle, you may contact me at any time at the following addresses: Chris Chapman P. O. Box 555 Uniontown, AR 72955 e-mail: chapman@kagi.com URL: http://members.aol.com/cnchapman/index.html THANK YOU FOR TRYING DOUBLE-DECK PINOCHLE!