Patches & Support files - August '97

Updates and fixes from this month's Bug Patrol Column

Rose Vines provides bugs, fixes, anomalies and workarounds for your favourite applications.

The Neverhood and Goosebumps

DirectSound errors
If you've been receiving DirectSound error messages when trying to run DreamWorks Interactive's The Neverhood or any of Scholastics Goosebumps series, there are a few possible causes.

The first is that your SoundBlaster soundcard is configured for single Direct Memory Access (DMA), when what you need is both DMA channels active. Alternatively, it could be that you're using a soundcard driver that's incompatible with DirectX, or you may even have several versions of DirectX installed.

You should check each of these areas one by one, starting with your DMA settings. To do this:

1. Click the Start button, choose Settings and then Control Panel to display the Control Panel.

2. Double-click the System icon in the Control Panel to display the System Properties.

3. Click the Device Manager tab in the System Properties dialogue box.

4. Locate Sound, Video and Game Controllers in the list, and highlight your soundcard in the list of sound components. Then click the Properties button beneath the list to display your soundcard properties.

5. Click the Resources tab in the Soundcard Properties dialogue box and make sure the Use Automatic Settings box is ticked. Look through the Resource Settings list and check that there are two settings shown for Direct Memory Access.

If you still have problems, the solution may be to update your soundcard driver. Check first on the DreamWorks or Scholastic CD-ROM for an update driver, and install it if you find one. Otherwise, the best route is to try out your card manufacturer's Web site. (You'll find SoundBlaster drivers at http://www.creativelabs.com; use a search engine to locate drivers for other manufacturers.)

If DirectSound is still causing you problems, you should check to see if you have multiple versions installed. Locate the DirectX folder on your hard disk -- it's usually in the Program Files folder -- and open the Setup folder beneath it. Double-click the program dxsetup.exe and choose Restore Windows 95 Drivers (your option may be Restore Audio Drivers). Ensure you're using the latest version of your soundcard driver (you may need to Remove the soundcard from the Control Panel, System, Device Manager list and then let it be 'redetected' by Windows 95). Once you've made sure you're using an up-to-date soundcard driver, reinstall DirectX by running the dxinstall.exe program.

Iomega Zip drives

Bi-directional printer problems
If you're blessed with the twin glories of an Iomega Zip drive and a printer with bi-directional support, you may find your Zip drive grinds to a halt and occasionally even crashes your system when you access it. This is because your computer and printer are constantly checking on each other in the background to see what's up (that's part of the 'bi-directional' functionality) and, of course, all this background chatter is being directed through the Zip's pass-through parallel port.

Iomega has a whole list of solutions to this problem, depending on the make and model of your printer. You'll often find the solution is not entirely satisfactory: turning off the advanced printer control dialogue boxes that come with these printers. But that's better than a system that crashes each time you try to do a Zip disk write.

Some of the printers that commonly have problems with Zip drives are:

• Most of Hewlett-Packard's LaserJet offerings

• HP DeskJet 600, 855 and 820 series

• Canon BJC-610 and 620

• Lexmark printers

• Okidata 600e

• Brother HL630

Find out how you can fix your printer at http://www.iomega.com/support/zf3.html

Microsoft Intellimouse

Scroll everywhere
Microsoft's Intellimouse with the built-in wheel for scrolling window contents is one of the truly great hardware inventions of recent years. If you have one, you'll know just how close to being like having three arms these things are. The only failing is that the scrolling feature works only in supported programs, such as the Office suite and Explorer 3. While this is not a bug, it certainly is a glaring gap, and it comes as a shock each time you switch to a program that doesn't let you scroll with the roll of the wheel.

So, do yourself a very big favour and get Plannet Crafters' Flywheel. This little utility adds Intellimouse scrolling to almost every program. It even adds scrolling to dialogue boxes, and offers a couple of other functions for controlling Intellimouse features.

We're including the trial version on this month's PC User CD-ROM. Be prepared to fork out the $US10 to register it: I can guarantee you won't want to be without it once you've used it. You can also visit Plannet Crafters' site at http://www.plannetarium.com

Windows 95 TCP/IP

Denial of service update
On last month's CD-ROM we mentioned a 'denial of service/out of band' problem with Windows NT and Windows 95 TCP/IP which could prevent users accessing data until the system was reset. The fix for NT was available at that time, but not for Windows 95.

Now Microsoft has released the Win 95 fix and we've included it on this month's PC User CD-ROM.

Windows NT 4.0

Security enhanced
Microsoft regularly releases enhancements and fixes for Windows NT in the form of service packs. Service Pack 3 has recently been released, focussing on the current curse of Microsoft operating systems: security.

New security components include:

• SMB Signing

• Password Filtering

• Restricting Unauthorised User Access

• Using a System Key to Strongly Encrypt Password Information

• CryptoAPI 2.0

• New RPC transport for Microsoft Message Queue Server

New APIs include:

• DirectX 3.0

• Direct3D

• ODBC 3.0

• Win 32 APIs and SDK for Service Pack 3

There are also a bunch of new components for the Internet Information Server:

• Active Server Pages 1.0b

• Microsoft Index Server 1.1

• Microsoft NetShow 1.0

• Microsoft FrontPage 97 Server Extensions

• Crystal Reports

As well as all this, you'll find loads of bug fixes, including fixes for the security holes we've talked about in recent issues.

You can download the whole kit and caboodle (18Mb's worth) from http://www.microsoft.com/NTServerSupport/Content/ServicePacks/Where.htm or save yourself a lot of hassle and grab it off this month's PC User Offline CD-ROM, together with the readme.txt file which you need to read before embarking on installation.

Previous PC User Offline CD's

Patches and Support files - July '97

Patches and Support files - June '97

Patches and Support files - May '97

Patches and Support files - April '97

Patches and Support files - March '97