Re: XyWin on XP

[Peter Cassidy pcassidy@xxxxxxxx]

Paul

You are absolutely right - but not possessing the entire story. I think
something happens when XP Service Pack 2 augments the operating system.
I installed XP SP1 from a manufacturer's source disc on a MacBook Pro
running OS X with VMWare. XyWin ran flawlessly and faster, in fact, than
I'd ever seen it execute. As soon as the auto-update installed SP2
however, XyWin no longer functioned. I am whomping about the weeds here
in the office trying to find my old WIN2K Professional as I know XyWin
will run just fine under that OS.


By the way, if you are thinking of running a Mac with VMWare to mount
XP, go right ahead. It has really been refined to host XP specifically.
Chugs along without a burp. The fun part is running a number of OSes
simultaneously, like Solaris, resulting in a hardy and stable
configuration I call The Solaritosh.


Peter


Paul Ambos wrote:

For several years now Priscilla Godfrey had been trying to track down why
XyWin aborts itself or locks up under Windows XP on some machines but not
others. In the post copied below she speculates that it may be a BIOS or
chipset issue, but evidently her requests for further data have gone for the
most part unanswered.

A week and a half ago my office computer crashed and the IT guy recommended
an operating system reinstall due to bad sectors on the C drive, and since
my registry backup was not as current as other files, I reinstalled software
rather than restoring the registry. Lo and behold, XyWin, which never
worked before on this machine, now does.

So the issue is not BIOS or chipsets, but probably some other driver that is
interfering with XyWin. In short, it is clearly strictly a software issue.
If XyWin fails as I add other software in the future, I should be able to
pin down the problem and will report.

Regards,

Paul Ambos
pambos@xxxxxxxx







  * Subject: Re: XyWin on XP
  * From: "Patricia M. Godfrey" 
  * Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 12:39:49 -0500

RJW823@xxxxxxxx wrote:



My desktop has same processor and RAM. XyWin runs fine.
Bob White

 


We've apparently eliminated CPU and RAM, or at least gross amount of
RAM. So the next things to look at are BIOS and chipsets. Unfortunately,

they're harder to find out, esp. in Name Brand systems. The BIOS brand and
version usually flashes on the screen at the PC boots, but with modern
screamingly fast systems (before they start trying to load Redmond Rubbish),
that can fly by too fast to be seen. If you cannot catch the name and
version, look for the key that you're supposed to hit to enter the BIOS (you
may well need it sometime, so you should know it anyway), and hit it. DON'T
do anything once you're in it, just look and see; it should say, e.g., AMI
BIOS version xx.xxx. Write it down, then hit escape and accept "Exit without
saving?"

The chipset maker and version should be listed in the docs that came with
the machine. It also probably appears in Control Panel's Device Manager:
things like the IDE controller, USB controller, IRQ steering will specify
whom they're by.

I will check next time I'm in the office and see what the XP box has. If we
can amass enough data, we may be able to discern a pattern. (If two people
have the exact same hardware, and one can run XyWin and one cannot, then we
know that the problem is in some setting, either in XP or XyWin. If no one
with Brand X BIOS or Chipset can run it, and everyone with Brand Y can, we
know it's a hardware issue.)

Patricia M. Godfrey




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