Microsoft KB Archive/129025

Contents of the Microsoft Bob 1.0 README.TXT

PSS ID Number: Q129025 Article last modified on 04-25-1996

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WINDOWS

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= SUMMARY =

The following is the contents of the README.TXT file for Microsoft Bob version 1.0.

= MORE INFORMATION =

Microsoft Bob Version 1.00 README File

February 1st, 1995

(C) Copyright Microsoft Corporation, 1995 This document provides information about Microsoft Bob, as well as answers to questions you might have.

To view README on screen in Windows Notepad, maximize the Notepad window.

To print README, open it in Windows Write, Microsoft Word, or another word processor. Then select the entire document and format the text in 10-point Courier before printing.

Changing SmartDrive Cache to make Bob Run Faster Deleting Files Getting Technical Help Hardware that Is Incompatible with the Bob disks Opening Specific Files When Launching Windows Programs From Bob Letter Writer Printing using HP DeskJet Making Backup Copies of the Bob Disks Modem Troubleshooting Print Troubleshooting Running Bob with Windows for Workgroups Version 3.11 Screen/Display Troubleshooting Video Drivers

On computers with 8Meg of RAM, you may get better performance from Bob using a SmartDrive cache of 1Meg. In general, to change your SmartDrive cache do the following:

  Click the Windows Notepad (it is part of the Accessories group in the Windows Program Manager) and press Enter.   Click “File,” and then click “Open” in the File menu that drops down.   Type the following (exactly as it appears here): c:.bat Click OK and the autoexec.bat file appears.   Scroll down until you find the following line: c: Note that there may be text and/or numbers after this text.   Change the SmartDrive line to look like this: c: 1024   Exit Notepad, clicking “Yes” to save the file.   Exit Windows and turn your computer off and back on. Restart Windows and then start Bob to see if this has improved performance. If this doesn’t help, or you can’t find this line in your autoexec.bat then contact your computer manufacturer directly. 

Don’t remove any files that are in the directory or any of its subdirectories, or you may experience technical problems. If you want to delete anything in Bob, go to the appropriate program and delete it there. For example, you would open the Letter Writer to delete a particular letter.

For technical help, contact your designated support provider. To find out who your designated support provider is, refer to page 29 of the Bob Magazine, which came with your Bob disks.

The Bob disks use Distribution Media Format (DMF). DMF increases the capacity of a 3.5-inch floppy disk, reducing the number of disks needed to install Bob and speeding up the installation process. Most 1.44 MB or 2.88 MB floppy drives should be able to read the Bob DMF disks, EXCEPT:


 * SCSI floppy drives, including Flopticals
 * Floppy drives attached via older MicroSolutions Compaticards
 * Apple Macintosh floppy drives (even via SoftPC)
 * Early Gateway 2000 Handbook or Colorbook notebooks

If your computer has one of the listed floppy drives and it could not read the Bob disks, please refer to page 29 of the Bob Magazine for information on how to contact your Designated Support Provider for a non-DMF disk set.

If you want to open a specific file when you launch a Windows program from Bob, do the following:

  Click “Other options” in any room. </li>  Click “Add something,” “Program,” and then “Or browse on your own.” </li>  Similar to creating a program item in Program Manager, type a description for what you are launching. </li>  Press TAB key and fill in the pathname for your program executable (.EXE), followed by a space, and then the pathname for your file. For example: c:.exe c:.doc If you do not know the pathname for your program executable, click “Browse the file system” to look for it. </li>  Type a path for the working directory (optional) and click OK. </li></ol>

You should now have a program starter with the icon for your Windows program on it. When you click this program starter, it will open the specified program and the specified file.

If the borders on your letters look wrong (e.g., they are boxed in by extra lines), and you are printing on an HP DeskJet, you may need an updated printer driver. There is a known problem with printing borders using version 4.10 of the HP DeskJet driver. Please contact HP’s Technical Support directly at (970) 339-7009 for an updated printer driver.

NOTE: You can also download DeskJet drivers by dialing (208) 344-1691.

The Bob disks use Distribution Media Format (DMF). DMF increases the capacity of a 3.5-inch floppy disk, reducing the number of disks needed to install Bob and speeding up the installation process.

But, because DMF is a read-only format, you cannot use MS-DOS DiskCopy, Microsoft Windows Copy Disk (File Manager), or any other method to make backup copies of the Bob disks. Instead, use the original set of Bob disks as your backup; store them in a safe place after installing Bob.

Also, DO NOT do any of the following:


 * 1) Write or copy anything to a Bob disk when it is in the floppy drive. This will destroy the disk.
 * 2) Because DMF is a new format, many existing utilities, such as Norton Disk Doctor, Microsoft ScanDisk, MS-DOS DiskCopy, and Microsoft Windows Copy Disk do not recognize DMF. You should NOT use disk utilities to examine a DMF formatted disk, as these utilities can corrupt the DMF disk.

If you are having problems connecting to E-Mail, you may not have the correct modem settings. Please try the following:

Choose a lower baud rate by clicking “Other Options,” and “Change Modem Settings.” Click a lower baud rate and try connecting again.

If you are still having problems, please contact your designated support provider. To find out who your designated support provider is, please refer to page 29 of the Bob Magazine that came with your Bob disks.

If you use the following checklists and you still can’t print, look for a “Troubleshooting” section in your printer’s manual for more help.

If you turn on your printer and nothing happens:


 * Is your printer plugged firmly into your computer and into a power outlet? If you’re using a power strip, it must be plugged in and turned on, too.
 * Is your printer on? A button labeled “On Line” should be lit. If the light isn’t on, press the “On Line” button.

Your printer is on, but it won’t print or it takes a long time to print:

<ul>  Do you need to add paper, or is the paper jammed? </li>  Is the correct printer selected? You can check by finding “Print” in any program (usually under “Other Options”). When you see the printing balloon, click “Set up printer.” The name in the “Default Printer” box should match your printer. If you don’t know which printer to look for, check your printer manual or contact your printer manufacturer for that information. If the correct printer isn’t on the list, look for printing topics in the index of your Windows manual to find out how to add it. </li>  Do you have a lot of pictures in your document? If so, try printing one page at a time, or take out some of the pictures. </li></ul>

Part of the document is cut off when you print:


 * Part of your document may have spilled over into the printer’s non-printing area (the part of the paper the printer can’t use). Try making the margins bigger until you solve the problem. Click “Other Options,” and then click “Change Margins.”

To help improve Bob’s performance when running on Windows for Workgroups version 3.11, try one or more of the following:

<ul>  If you are running on an 8MB (or lower) computer, starting Windows with “win /n” so that the network drivers do not load, should make Bob run faster. </li>  If you have 32-bit file access turned on under “386 Enhanced” in the Windows Control Panel, try turning it off, or reduce the size of the cache to 512K. To turn it off, do the following:   Open the Windows Control Panel, which is in the Main group in Program Manager. </li>  Double-click the “386 Enhanced” icon. </li>  Click “Virtual Memory” button, and then “Change” button. </li>  Click the “Use 32-Bit File Access” checkbox so that it is clear (i.e. deselected). </li> <li> Click OK and then click “Restart Your Computer.” Be sure to close other programs before restarting your computer. </li></ol> </li></ul>

If you encounter problems with your screen/display, such as missing pieces of words, incomplete balloons, or anything else that looks strange or incorrect, try the following:


 * 1) Sign out of Bob and close Bob.
 * 2) Close Windows and restart your computer by turning it off and back on.
 * 3) Restart Windows, and then open and sign into Bob.

If your display still looks odd to you, your video driver (which is the software that makes your monitor display your programs) may not work correctly with Bob. Please refer to the Video Driver section below, or contact your designated support provider by referring to page 29 of the Bob Magazine that came with your Bob disks.

If you experience crashes when running Bob or a crash directly after starting Bob, the problem is most likely a video driver flaw. Certain versions of some video drivers contain flaws that will cause Bob to not run correctly. In general, more recent versions of these drivers correct the problems mentioned.

General Points

 * 1) Some video cards have a “Virtual Desktop” feature. It is best to turn off the Virtual Desktop feature when running Bob. Refer to your video card manual that you received when you bought your video card or computer.
 * 2) If you are using a “large fonts” video driver, which makes the writing on your screen larger than normal, and you experience any problems with your display/screen when using Bob, you may need to switch to another video driver when using Bob.

ATI Video Driver Incompatibilities
There are many known flaws with the ATI video drivers which in some cases will crash Bob. You should call ATI Customer Support directly at 905-882-2626 for the latest news on the ATI drivers. Potential fixes include:


 * 1) There are several flaws in all versions of the Mach64 video drivers that will cause Bob to crash. Use the standard 640x480 resolution 256-color SVGA driver to work around these flaws.
 * 2) There is a flaw in the 24-bit (16.7 million colors) Mach32 video driver on the ATI video card that will crash Bob. Use the 256-color Mach32 video driver to work around this problem.
 * 3) The Mach8 video driver on the ATI Ultra video card has several problems. Use the standard 640x480 resolution 256-color SVGA driver.
 * 4) Some ATI drivers have a “Crystal Fonts” option, which will slow the speed at which Bob can run. Turning Crystal Fonts off may alleviate this problem.

Cirrus Logic Video Driver Incompatibilities
<ol style="list-style-type: decimal;"> <li> Because of a problem in the Cirrus 542x chipset in some older video drivers, the Cirrus company has released new drivers which eliminate some problems. Bob Setup will update the drivers for you automatically if you click “Yes” when it asks you to update your drivers. Microsoft recommends that you choose to update the video drivers during Bob Setup, so Bob will run correctly. If you choose to update the drivers, Setup will copy the original 256_1280.drv and 64k_1024.drv files to 256_1280.bob and 64k_1024.bob before replacing the originals with the 1.43 version of the drivers. If you need the original drivers back, you can rename 256_1280.bob and 64k_1024.bob to have the .drv extension. </li> <li> Cirrus drivers before version 1.30 with the 62x5 chipset cause Bob to crash (experience a GP Fault). Contact Cirrus directly at 510-623-8300 to obtain version 1.30 or later of the 256_62x5.drv. </li></ol>

Phoenix VGA Video Driver Incompatibilities

 * 1) The Phoenix VGA S3 cards will not display text correctly, and may cause Bob to crash. Contact your video card manufacturer directly to obtain the latest version of their drivers, or use the generic S3 801 chipset drivers.

Diamond Stealth Video Driver Incompatibilities

 * 1) The Diamond Stealth s64 DRAM (864 controller) drivers version 1.30ai and before will cause Bob to crash. Contact Diamond directly at 408-325-7100 for a driver to fix the problem, or use the generic S3 864 chipset drivers.

#9 Video Driver Incompatibilities

 * 1) Some #9 drivers have “TurboCopy” and “AutoCenter” options, which will cause Bob to not run correctly. Turning TurboCopy and AutoCenter off by using the #9 Control Panel will alleviate this problem.

KBCategory: kbreadme kbusage kbref KBSubcategory: b_Shell

= Additional reference words: w_bob text answers email e mail =

Keywords : b_shell Version : 1.00 Platform : WINDOWS ============================================================================= Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1996.