The Best of Windows 95.com 1997 April

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Text File | 1996-12-23 | 11.8 KB | 316 lines

DOGZ, Your Computer Pet (TM) Welcome to Dogz! Ordering Dogz for yourself or for a friend is simple - either go to your local software retailer or call us directly at 1-800-48-ADOPT. Also available in the Computer Petz line from PF.Magic: Catz and Oddballz! Catz (TM) are the next in line of Your Computer Petz, following in the pawprints of Dogz. Catz live on your desktop and they don't mind sharing it with you. Your Catz enjoy being petted. You can play with them and watch them stalk the Mouse across your documents. In the screensaver mode, they also enjoy taking CatNapz. Oddballz (TM) are the latest generation of Computer Petz. Like Catz and Dogz, Oddballz live and play with you on your computer desktop. However, Oddballz are different from anything you've ever seen before--with strange new habits, weird mutations and surprising reactions for you to discover. Start with seven hilarious breeds of Oddballz and then collect more off the World Wide Web. You can have Dogz, Catz and Oddballz installed on your computer, but you can only have one active at a time. For more information and other fun stuff, check out the PF.Magic Web Site at: www.pfmagic.com HOW TO INSTALL DOGZ: - Run SETUP.EXE - This will install a copy of Dogz to your hard drive. QUICK START Getting Started - After you install Dogz, you'll see a "Dogz" icon in a Windows Program Group (or under the "Programs" item of the START menu in Windows '95) named "Yourname's Dogz" (where "yourname" is your first name). - Start Dogz by double-clicking on the icon named "Dogz" (or simply selecting the "Dogz" icon under Windows '95). - This will open the Dogz Adoption Kit - You can pet and play with any of the five Dogz breeds and decide which one is best for you! - When you decide which one you want to adopt, click the "Adopt Me Now" button. Important Note - Dogz love to run around on your computer screen. - Whenever you let a Dogz loose on the screen, you will not be able to click on any other application until you... 1) put the Dogz back into the Doghouse, or 2) Quit Dogz, or 3) Press ALT-TAB to switch to another application, or 4) Press ESCAPE (this will instantly pop the Dogz back into their Doghouses) In the Adoption Kit you can pet and play with five different breeds of Dogz. Once you have adopted your own Dogz, you will have many other things to do. You will be able to feed, play with and train your Dogz. You will be able to groom them to change their color. Your Dogz will be able to act as Guard Dogz, protecting your computer from monitor burn-in and file snoops. Over time, your adopted puppyDogz will grow up to be a full size Dogz. IN THE ADOPTION KIT TRY THIS... Picking up your Dogz - To pick up Dogz and move them to a new location, click the right mouse button while the cursor is anywhere over the Dogz. - Don't worry - this won't hurt it. Releasing the mouse button will drop your Dogz safely to the desktop. - If you drop the Dogz back on top of its doghouse, it will pop back into its doghouse. Dogz love to be petted! - You can pet your Dog at any time. To do this, simply click and hold the left mouse button while the cursor is over the Dogz. The cursor will change to a "petting hand." - Stroke the Dog with the cursor while holding down the left mouse button. - If you pet your Dogz just right and long enough, it might roll over to let you scratch its stomach, or even go to sleep. Sleeping - If you leave Dogz alone for several minutes, they usually nod off to sleep. You may even catch them dreaming! - A nice way to wake up Dogz is to pet them while they're sleeping. KNOWN MISBEHAVIORS ("TROUBLESHOOTING") "I'm having trouble putting Dogz back into their Dogzhouses." - Make sure your cursor hand is positioned over the Dogzhouse when you drop the Dogz off. "My Dog disappears from the screen." - Like a real dog, your Dogz will sometimes run off on its own errands. - Try double-clicking the mouse to call your Dogz back. "My Dog sometimes freezes on the screen." - Digital Dogz need to behave well and make sure they don't slow down your system. If an important application needs to control your computer for a few seconds, your Dogz will hold still until that application lets go. It's nothing to worry about! "The Dogz Playpen window has changed colors." - If you change your Display resolution or color palette while Dogz is running, your Dogz colors may shift undesirably. To fix this, simply quit and relaunch Dogz. - Also, when running on a system with only 256 colors, opening or selecting another application can sometimes cause Dogz colors to change (the programs are competing for the same colors). If your Dogz turns black, changes colors in an unexpected way, or the Playpen background colors become distorted, try minimizing the Playpen window and re-opening it. - If this does not work, close and re-open Dogz and the problem should go away. "Guard Dogz requires a password, but I did not set one!" - If you had already set a password for another screen saver, you may find that this password is still required for Guard Dogz. "I'm not hearing any sounds." - To hear your Dogz, you need a SoundBlaster(tm) compatible card installed. - Remember that if Dogz is ever minimized or another application is opened on top of Dogz (even when "Always on Top" is set), your Dogz will keep quiet. Only when Dogz is the foremost application will sounds be heard. "The Playpen window sometimes appears on screen over my screen saver." - If you set the Playpen window to be "Always on Top" and Dogz is left running in Fullscreen mode, on some computers, the Playpen window will be visible above other screen savers when they appear on screen. To eliminate this problem, either turn off the "Always on Top" setting or be sure to put your Dogz back into the Playpen when you are finished playing with your Dogz. "Does Installing Dogz affect my system files?" - The files that come with PF. Magic Dogz are as system-friendly as possible. Dogz won't crawl into your AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS files and mess them up. SERIOUS TROUBLESHOOTING (Slightly more technical, but not impossible) "Dogz booted me back to the Adoption Kit, and is asking me for an Unlock Code!" - If you installed the Retail CD (or floppies) over any previously installed demo versions of Dogz, the Retail version may "revert" and think it's the back in the Adoption Kit demo mode. Even if you are not sure that you installed over another version, the following solution is highly recommended for this problem: I. If you are running Windows 3.11 please disable 32 bit disk and file access: 1) Locate the Control Panels in the Main program group. 2) Click on Enhanced 3) Select Virtual memory 4) Select change 5) Disable 32 bit file and disk access II. Uninstall Dogz completely: 1)Search your computer for all Dogz-related files (see outline below) 2)Uninstall (delete them) 3)Re-boot your machine III. Re-install from your retail CD (or floppies). *** HOW TO UNINSTALL DOGZ: *** I. In the WINDOWS DIRECTORY (C:\WINDOWS, C:\WIN, or C:\Win95) find and delete the following files: 1) Dogzdll.dll 2) Guarddog.dll 3) Guarddog.ini 4) Guarddog.scr (If you don't have all of the Guarddog.* files, skip 'em) II. In the root of your C: drive delete the following directory: Dogz.xxx <-- (where xxx = the 1st three letters of the registered owner or the letters "fir") * The location of the WINDOWS and DOGZ.xxx directories may vary depending on whether you chose to use their default locations upon install. * It is good practice to exit all applications whenever installing software. To do this simply press CTRL-ESC (Win 3.1 users) and CTRL-ALT-DEL (Win 95 users). Close all programs except Program Manager or Explorer. "I get an error message saying that certain Wing*.* files are locked, then install fails." - Whenever you install Dogz, the following files will also be installed to the Windows' System directory: 1) ctl3d.dll 2) ctl3d32.dll 3) ctl3dv2.dll 4) dva.386 5) wing.dll 6) wing32.dll 7) wingde.dll 8) wingdib.drv 9) wingpal.wnd These files may already exist on your system. If any of the above files are set to read-only, you will receive a "Wing*.* files are locked" error message. Solution: Windows 3.1 and 3.11 users: Locate and launch the MS-DOS Prompt program (usually located in the MAIN program group). Windows 95 users: Click on the Start Button located on the task bar, choose Programs then MS-DOS Prompt. You should see the following: C:\Windows> 1) Type cd system <ENTER> (You should now see: C:\Windows\System>) 2) Type the following three commands: ATTRIB -R CTL3D*.* <ENTER> ATTRIB -R DVA.386 <ENTER> ATTRIB -R WING*.* <ENTER> Example: C:\Windows\System>ATTRIB -R CTL3D*.* <ENTER> (If you type in the "attrib" command correctly all you will see is C:\Windows\System> after pressing <ENTER>.) 3) This should resolve the problem that you have encountered. You can now commence reinstallation of Dogz. "When my Guard Dog Screensaver activates while I'm not running Dogz, I get this error message: "You Must Adopt a Dogz to have Guard Dogz guard your screen". But I already adopted!" - The Dogz directory may have been inadvertently moved. When you installed Dogz, a default directory, Dogz.XXX was created at the root level or your C:\ drive (where 'XXX' are the first three letters of your name or the letters "fir"). Please make sure that the root statements of your Dogz path in the files below do in fact reflect the location of the Dogz.XXX directory. The following information details how you can go about finding the EXACT path of your Dogz folder. Located in the Dogz.XXX directory is a file labeled "Dogz.ini" If you double click on the this file you will see something like this: ---------------------------------- [Dogz] Brain File=brain.pbt Debug Brain Output File=cpp.pbt Debugging Info=0 Control Val0=10 Control Val1=30 Control Val2=100 Root=C:\DOGZ.CHR *** (This line indicates the location of the Dogz directory)*** Name=Chris Last Name UserCode=z77F112C0003 Your Pet=.\data\terrier.lnz Puppy Lived=1 Compound Window Location=300, 300, 750, 693 Panel Window Location=109, 76, 264, 344 Is Compound Iconized=0 Always on top=0 Brush Color=10 Serial Number=2431865697043895363 Serialized=1 Hiccup Proclivity=7 Pet Name=Chuckie age=18 last month use=6 last day use=11 Auto Save Photos=0 The line indicating the path of the Dogz.XXX directory is: Root=C:\DOGZ.CHR You now need to locate the Guarddog.ini file which is located in the Windows directory. Double-click on the Guarddog.ini file to open it. You should see something like this: [Dogz] Root=C:\DOGZ.CHR Guard Dog Sounds=0 Moon Phases=0 *If the "Root" statement in the Dogz.ini or Guarddog.ini contains a trailing backslash, you must remove it.* Example: Root=C:\DOGZ.CHR\ (Incorrect) Root=C:\DOGZ.CHR (Correct) If the Root statements in the Dogz.ini file or the Guarddog.ini are missing or are not identical, you must make the necessary edits. That wasnÆt so bad :) *No animals were harmed in the making of this product.* Dogz, Your Computer Pet, and PF. Magic are trademarks of PF. Magic, Inc. Copyright 1995 PF. Magic, Inc. All Rights Reserved.