PTE .EXE trashed Win98

[jgayman]

Here's an odd one. I've created a few slideshows with music and thinking PTE is just the greatest thing since sliced bread. All the slideshows have been playing great on my Win2K and XP machines. So I gave one of my shows to a friend who runs Win98. He has a 300Mhz PC with like 256MB memory. My slideshow .EXE contains a WAV soundtrack and is approx. 72MB in size, setup to autorun. When my friend put the CD in his drive it completely locked up the PC. He finally rebooted and the machine would only boot in safe mode. He eventually got the machine back up but now Win98 no longer sees the CD drive.

I have not been able to look at the Win98 PC myself so I'm just going by what he told me. Has anyone else ever experienced anything like this ? The hardware/software requirements for running a PTE are pretty minimal.

Don't you just wish everyone was at least running Win2K ?

- John

[Tripstrilles]

Hello, your friend has no mp3-codec. Try to use the internal mp3-player.

Then he has no problems.

T.

[jgayman]

I had done some tests on machines without an MP3 player and the slideshow still worked I just didnt have sound. Also, I specifically used a WAV file for the music soundtrack. Wouldn't this negate the need for an MP3 player ?

[ccmanz]

Hello John

Sorry to hear of your friends trouble.

My old system is Win98 300 Mhz with 256 I now use it for a server.

I test most of my shows on it and I have never had it Crash on me.

I don't use .wav files very often.

Keep us updated it you find out more about what caused the trouble.

cc

[think(box)]

John, whether or not PTE actually caused the crash, since your friend's system is Win98 you don't have long before he can't "easily" go back to when his system last worked successfully. Win98 keeps only the last 3-4 days that had successful startups for "restore". Beyond that you have to use registry backups if you have any (few make them), or full system backups. If this is getting that long ago the backup you need may be off the list. WinXP, on the other hand, is such a bad "house of cards" that Microsoft keeps restore info every day back for months.

Here is a procedure that I wrote recently for the last person to need Win98 restore. This only corrects things that have gone wrong with the registry and other system files (99.9% of the failures that happen in Windows). This is written for Win98 and Win98SE:

Here are the instructions: PLEASE PRINT FOR USE WHILE USING MS-DOS

1. Get to standalone DOS by either Win98 startup diskette or Start->Shutdown->

->Restart in MD-DOS Mode

(YOU CAN'T USE DOS WHILE WINDOWS IS RUNNING TO DO THIS!)

2. At DOS prompt (looks like C:\WINDOWS or A:\ for example) type each of

these commands followed by pressing Enter key:

C:

CD \Windows\Command

SCANREG.EXE

If you make a mistake, repeat from the "C:". Note that there is a colon after

the C. And note that those are BACKSLASH, not forward slash characters above.

This Scanreg is the Microsoft Registry Checker that operates from DOS. It will

prompt you for a few things. If your mouse works, just click on things to select.

If your mouse is NOT working don't panic - the driver wasn't loaded - just use

keyboard arrow keys left, right and later up, down to select (highlight) what

you want, followed by pressing ENTER. If mouse clicking works you won't

need arrows or Enter key. Here is SCANREG (Microsoft Registry Checker)

dialog and what you should do:

When prompted to check registry click "Start"

When prompted click "View backups"

You will be shown 3-4 previous successful startup days from which to select.

Click on the date before when crash happened, when system worked OK.

Click "Restore" and wait for it to complete (not very long - seconds)

You will be prompted for RESTART when restore is done. TAKE DISKETTE OUT

if you used it and click "Restart" if they give you such a button, else just

press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to restart after taking diskette out.

Save these instructions for future use !

[ END ]

[mannybr2003]

Regarding the PTE Slideshow that erased the Win98, it might have done it. Last week, one of my pc's, an Intel 500 + just didn't start up/boot up anymore after I inserted my cd with a start up containing my PTE show. Fortunately I still have 4 more pc's and have not experience yet another on those pc's.

By the way I have made some success in putting 6 MP3's on my other slideshows on CD, and all are working well. But it is when I use the internal MP3 player. My machines refuse to play the show when I don't put a check in the MP3 for my sounds from the APR or PTE engine.

[nobeefstu]

jgayman,

I would only be assuming your friends 98 300mz Pc meets the minimum requirements to play your PTE Show. However, keep in mind ... your Show also must be built using minimum demands. Just because your Pc may have the power to run your Show ... doest mean your friends can do the same. So, to PLAY on minimum ... you must build your PTE Show in minimum too. ( Also 256 mb ram doesnt necessasarily mean its all free available ram )

As a TEST .... copy your PTE Show to the 98 harddrive and try to play it. Playing a Show from a CD creates other demands on a PC as a CDRom cannot read as fast as the harddrive.

This test will at least tell you if its just a CDRom issue or and actuall PLAY issue on the PC itself.

[jgayman]

I certainly appreciate everyone's input on this problem. Backwards compatibility is a constant source of headaches. I do a lot of video editing, DVD creation, digital photography, etc. and it's always a challenge trying to second guess your audiences PC capabilities. I'm using a 2.4GHz P4 running XP Pro and 1GB memory. I keep fairly up to date with patches, hotfixes, codecs, etc. I can't tell you how many times I've encountered problems with other folks who even though they are running Win2K or XP on a fast PC, have never applied a single update, etc. and as such have problems with certain types of multi-media.

Aside from this one incident, PTE is still the greatest slideshow program I have used to date !

- John

[Ken Cox]

I hate to be the one to say dont make your shows auto run -- let the person who are giving it to decide

- put a readme on the disk on how to start/run your masterpiece and write it so that the lowest common denominator can understand in other words practice the KISS principle -- believe it or not but there are still a pile of < 333mhz/64 ram systems out there

when i first started making these p2e shows on a 333mhz win 98 se system i didnt realize the amt of HP they required -- people were not impressed when i crashed their bare bones win 95 system when i double clicked the exe

ken