Re: NBWIN -- frequent crashes

["William H. TeBrake" tebrake@xxxxxxxx]

Date sent:   	Wed, 15 Dec 1999 09:40:50 -0500
Send reply to: 	xywrite@xxxxxxxx
From:      	Nicholas Clifford 
To:       	xywrite@xxxxxxxx
Subject:    	NBWIN -- frequent crashes

> Has anyone else been having bad crash problems with NBWIN? I've had the
> program for a couple of weeks now, and discover that it goes down with
> monotonous regularity, sometimes by itself, sometimes taking the entire
> system with it. This morning it's gone down at least ten times in the
> past hour, thus prompting this message. Earlier I said that NBWIN
> struck me as a work in progress, but I would have hoped a bit more
> progress would have been made before it was put out on the market.
>
> The problem comes in working with chapter-length files of a certain
> complexity (full of footnotes and such), particularly when I'm trying to
> edit footnotes. But isn't that sort of scholarly work what NB is
> supposed to be good at? Nor did an e-mail to their tech support some
> time ago bring any response.

Originally, I had similar problems. It turned out that NBWin
conflicted with some detritus left behind from another piece of
software, in my case an e-mail and conferencing program used on
our campus called FirstClass. The only way I could avoid a lockup
was to reboot the computer after using FirstClass, in which case
NBWin was rock solid. Fortunately, the combination of NBWin
5.004, the latest version of FirstClass, and changing from
Windows95 to Windows98, Second Edition, has solved the
problem completely. Others, on the NotaBene list, have pointed to
possible conflicts with other pieces of software. My suggestion: try
a system reboot, use Ctrl-Alt-Delete to unload every task currently
running until you are left with only explorer and, perhaps, systray,
and then try NBWin. If it still is unstable, ask for your money
back. If this works, selectively allow other tasks to run until you
find the culprit. Then tell both the makers of the culprit program as
well as NotaBene about the conflict.

> Compared to NBWIN, MS WORD is a model of stability. There are other
> minor problems; there is no way, for instance, to get the envelope
> printing program to work as advertised. I've tried all sorts of
> permutations and they all fail, sending me back either to Xy4DOS or MS
> WORD. Any help cheerfully accepted, for at this point I'm sorely
> tempted to see if I can get my money back.

There was a discussion about envelope printing on the NotaBene
list a while back. What, specifically, doesn't work? If the address
in your letter doesn't transfer, do the following: using the mouse,
not the keyboard, highlight the address, then access file, print
envelope, and the address should be in the proper window. If you
need to adjust the way the envelope is positioned, press options,
check "control feed method manually", make your changes, and
uncheck manual feed. This may help you.

Hope this helps,
Bill

---
William H. TeBrake
Department of History       E-Mail: tebrake@xxxxxxxx
University of Maine        Telephone: Int+1-207-581-1923
Orono, ME 04469-5774 USA     Fax: Int+1-207-581-1817