MICROSOFT PRODUCT SUPPORT SERVICES - FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Microsoft's Product Support Services group is in charge of answering customer questions about Microsoft products. What follows are some of the questions most frequently asked by Microsoft Bookshelf users, as well as some answers from the PSS experts. 1. "WHEN I TRY TO PLAY AN ANTHEM FROM THE ATLAS OR A MUSICAL EXAMPLE FROM THE ENCYCLOPEDIA. I DON'T HEAR ANYTHING." Microsoft Bookshelf includes two types of audio: waveform audio and MIDI synthesized music. The national anthems and musical examples are MIDI synthesized music. To determine the source of your MIDI problems, use the following troubleshooting tips: * Be sure that the correct patchmap is installed in the MIDI Mapper: 1. Start the Control Panel application. 2. Double-click the MIDI Mapper icon. 3. In the Show Field portion of the MIDI Mapper select "Setups". 4. Click the Edit button. Base-level MIDI synthesizers (SB Pro, Pro Audio Spectrum) use channels 13 - 16. 5. Click on Source Channel 13 to see the Port Name list box. Click the down arrow to see a list of currently available patchmaps. 6. Select the patchmap that has the FM option. (The FM synthesizer is the patchmap that drives the FM synthesizer chipset located on the sound board.) 7. Repeat step 6 for channels 14-16. * Be sure your MIDI drivers are installed and functioning: 1. Start the Control Panel application. 2. Double click the Driver icon. A dialog box will list the currently installed drivers. The following drivers should be installed: * MIDI Mapper * [MCI] MIDI Sequencer * A MIDI-specific device driver (available from your sound board manufacture) If one or more of these drivers is missing, go ahead and install it. 2. "I RECEIVED AN ERROR MESSAGE THAT SAYS 'AUDIO FAILED: MIDI FILE DOES NOT EXIST OR IS INVALID.'" Follow the steps shown for problem #1. 3. "THE AUDIO SEEMS TO SKIP OR HESITATE WHEN I PLAY A NARRATED ANIMATION IN THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OR A QUOTE IN BARTLETT'S QUOTATIONS." Audio that skips or hesitates can indicate that the CD-ROM doesn't meet the MPC specification, which is defined as follows: 1. The data transfer rate of the CD-ROM is 150 KB per second or greater. 2. The average seek time is less than 1 second. 3. The CD-ROM drive consumes no more than 40% of the CPU bandwidth. Although the first two conditions are typically satisfied by most CD-ROM drives, the third condition is a bit more obscure and harder to measure directly. One way to check into this is to examine the performance specifications listed in your CD-ROM's reference manual. Most CD-ROM drives that meet the MPC Specification include an internal cache buffer (located on the CD-ROM drive) of 64K or greater. If your CD-ROM drive does not include this, there is no software workaround, and the audio problem should be considered a limitation of the CD-ROM drive. 4. "I'VE RECEIVED AN ERROR MESSAGE THAT SAYS 'CANNOT FIND VIEWER FILE. PLEASE INSERT DISK WITH THE VIEWER FILES IN THE CD-ROM.'" * Be sure that the Bookshelf CD is in the CD-ROM drive. * Follow these steps to be sure that the Icon Properties are correct: 1. Select the Bookshelf icon. 2. From the File menu of Program Manager, select the Program Item Properties command. After a default installation, the Command Line field should look like this: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MVIEWER2.EXE BOOKS93.MVB * Check the Windows File Manager to be sure that the CD-ROM drive icon is present. If it is, try to force a disc-change notification by following these steps: 1. Open the File Manager. 2. Select the CD-ROM drive by clicking the CD-ROM drive icon. 3. Press F5, or select Refresh from the Window menu. 4. Close the File Manager and start Bookshelf. If no drive icon is present for the CD-ROM, the CD-ROM extensions are improperly installed. Contact your CD-ROM drive manufacturer for specific information on how to install the CD-ROM extensions for your particular drive. 5. "I'VE RECEIVED A MESSAGE THAT SAYS 'AN ERROR WAS FOUND IN THE BOOKMARK FILE. TRY CLOSING AND RESTARTING THE APPLICATION.'" Close and restart Microsoft Bookshelf. If this does not solve the problem, the Bookmark file is probably corrupted. Delete the VIEWER.BMK file located in the C:\WINDOWS directory. Multimedia Viewer will recreate the VIEWER.BMK file the next time Microsoft Bookshelf is run. 6. "I'VE RECEIVED A MESSAGE THAT SAYS 'SEGMENT LOAD FAILURE.'" This error message generally indicates that one or more files have been improperly transferred to the hard disk. To determine if a file(s) has been transferred successfully, use the File Compare command as follows: FC /B C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MVIEWER2.EXE D:\VIEWER\MVIEWER2.EXE If the File Compare utility returns any mismatches/discrepancies, recopy the mismatched file(s) to the hard disk using the XCOPY command. XCOPY performs a bit-by-bit transfer of the file to the hard disk. 7. "I'VE RECEIVED A MESSAGE THAT SAYS 'UNABLE TO DISPLAY PICTURE.' OR 'UNABLE TO DISPLAY.'" This message is generated if your computer is low on memory. Check your CONFIG.SYS and/or AUTOEXEC.BAT files: Do you see a file called SMARTDRV.EXE? If you do, and if you're running on a 2MB machine, remove SMARTDRV.EXE from AUTOEXEC.BAT, restart your computer, and try Microsoft Bookshelf again. If this doesn't work, call Microsoft Product Support Services. 8. "I'VE RECEIVED A MESSAGE THAT SAYS 'GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT.'" A General Protection Fault is a memory error--typically caused by a driver and/or an application writing to a memory address that it is not allocated. If you receive a General Protection Fault, follow these steps: 1. Try running Windows in Standard Mode by typing WIN /S from the DOS prompt. If Standard Mode Windows works, try starting Windows in the enhanced mode with the following command: WIN /D:XV If this solves the problem, make the following modifications to your SYSTEM.INI file in the [386Enh] section: EMMEXCLUDE=A000-EFFF VIRTUALHDIRQ=OFF 2. Check the General Protection Fault message box: It should indicate which module has affected the application. Disable or replace the indicated module (which is typically a driver or an application). If your system seems to generate frequent General Protection Faults, contact Microsoft Product Support Services. 9. DISPLAY PROBLEMS If you encounter problems displaying images or animations when running Microsoft Bookshelf, check the currently installed video driver: 1. Run the Windows Setup application. 2. Locate the Display driver item in the application window. If the display driver item is VGA: * Try running Windows in Standard Mode by typing WIN /S from the DOS prompt. If Standard Mode Windows works, try starting Windows in the enhanced mode with the following command: WIN /D:XV If this solves the problem, make the following modifications to your SYSTEM.INI file in the [386Enh] section: EMMEXCLUDE=A000-EFFF VIRTUALHDIRQ=OFF If this does not solve the problem, contact Microsoft Product Support Services. If the display driver item is NOT VGA: 1. Click on the Options menu and choose Change System Settings. 2. Change the Display setting to VGA. 3. Choose OK and restart Windows. 4. Run Microsoft Bookshelf and determine if the display problems still occur. If the problem still exists follow the suggestions described for VGA drivers, above. If the problem is solved, this would indicate that your current video driver selection is experiencing problems rendering the images in Bookshelf. You might want to consider choosing another video driver (if available) provided by your video card manufacture.To do so, run the Windows Setup application. If the problem persists, contact your video card manufacture for updated video drivers. 10. PRINTING PROBLEMS If you experience problems printing articles from Microsoft Bookshelf, follow these steps: 1. Select Copy from the Edit menu of Microsoft Bookshelf. 2. Switch to the Program Manager by press CTRL+ESC. 3. In the Task List that appears, highlight Program Manager and click Switch To. 3. Start Microsoft Write. 4. From the Edit menu in Microsoft Write select Paste. 5. Select Print from the File menu of Microsoft Write. Printing from a word processing program may, in some cases, produce better quality than printing directly from Microsoft Bookshelf.