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

Desktop white out
Yet another security problem has reared its head in Internet Explorer 4. If you're using IE4 with the Active Desktop, a Web programmer can paint over the HTML-based Desktop. This can only occur if a programmer deliberately designs a Java applet to attack visitors' machines. You'll know you've been bitten if parts of your Desktop, Start Menu or open windows are whited out, and you can no longer locate your mouse cursor.

Microsoft doesn't have a fix for the problem, but you can get around it by closing IE and reloading your Active Desktop. To do that, press Ctrl+Alt+Del (that is, hold down the Control, Alt and Delete keys simultaneously), click Internet Explorer in the list of programs and then click the End Task button. Sometimes you need to do this three times before the program actually stops. Closing Internet Explorer in this way may also close down your Active Desktop, leaving you with a white background. You'll see a link on the Desktop which you can click to restore your settings.

Page fault and fatal errors

If you encounter the error:

WPWIN98 caused an Internal Page Fault in Module WTLI80.DLL @ 0137:36a540d8

while running WordPerfect 8, you're in for a reinstallation. You may also find the reinstallation technique described below will help you with other page fault and fatal errors.

When you reinstall WordPerfect 8, use the COPYVERIFY switch. To do that:

1. Insert the WP CD-ROM in your drive.

2. Click the Start button, choose Run and in the Open box type:

d:\setup.exe /copyverify

where d: is the drive letter of your CD-ROM drive.

Using the COPYVERIFY switch forces the installation program to compare each file written to the hard disk to the original on the CD-ROM, so it takes longer than a normal installation. Any discrepancies are stored in a file called wpi8.log (if you're using WordPerfect Suite 8) and coi8.log (if you're using WordPerfect Professional), located in your temporary files folder.

3. After the installation has complete, locate the correct log file using the Start Menu, Find command if necessary.

4. Open the log file in any text editor. The log lists any files that did not install correctly. You'll need to recopy each of these files manually from the CD to the correct location on your hard disk drive.

5. Once you've manually copied all the files in the log file, rename the log file, re-run the installation, and recheck the newly created log file to verify that all the files have copied correctly.

 

Manual tiling
Sometimes when you manually tile a publication in PageMaker 6.x (or earlier) to a non-PostScript printer the page shifts down to the right, leaving the upper-left corner a little over half a centimetre from the zero point in each direction.

The easiest solution is to print to a PostScript printer. If that's not possible, move the zero point by clicking the crosshair in the zero-point window and then dragging it about a half centimetre higher and to the left.

Mail merging in Word
If you create a mail-merge document in Microsoft Word 97 using a list of fax numbers from Microsoft Outlook 97 faxed via Symantec WinFax Pro 8.0, you may see this error message:

DDE Syntax Error: Fax Number Must Be Specified.

To correct this, open your contact list in Outlook and remove the "Welcome to Contacts" entry. Then check that all the contacts have both a name and a business fax number.

Lock up with AWE 64
Microsoft's Age of Empires game may lock up after several minutes if you're using a SoundBlaster AWE 64.

To fix the problem, first make sure you're using the latest AWE 64 drivers, which we've included on this month's PC User Offline CD-ROM.

If the game continues to lock up, you'll need to add the msync parameter to the command line in the Age of Empires shortcut. Here's how:

1. In Windows 95, choose Settings from the Start Menu and then choose Taskbar to display the Taskbar Properties dialogue. Click the Programs tab and then click the Advanced button to open an Explorer window showing the contents of your Start Menu. Double-click Programs in the left pane. If you're running Windows NT, right-click Start, click Open All Users, and then double-click Programs.

2. Locate the Microsoft Games folder and double-click it, and then locate the Age of Empires folder and double-click it to display its contents. (If you installed Age of Empires to a different folder, you'll need to track it down in the Start Menu yourself.)

3. Right-click the shortcut to the Age of Empires program and, from the popup menu, choose Properties. In the dialogue box that appears, click the Shortcut tab.

4. In the target box type a space and then msync at the end of the existing command line. The new command should look something like this:

"[path]\Empires.exe" msync

where [path] is the folder where the Empires program is located.

5. Click OK to close the dialogue box, close the Explorer box and click OK to close the Taskbar Properties dialogue (in Windows 95).

Now you can try running Age of Empires again, making sure you run it using your newly-modified Start Menu shortcut.