Microsoft KB Archive/68394

Word 5.50 Crashes On Start-Up with DOS 4.x, LAN Manager

PSS ID Number: Q68394 Article last modified on 11-02-1994

5.50

MS-DOS

= SUMMARY =

Word 5.50 may crash upon start-up with certain configurations involving DOS LAN Manager and DOS version 4.00 or 4.01 when one or more network drives are connected. This problem may occur as Word checks for the presence of removable (floppy) disk drives on the computer. The problem does not occur on all computers running DOS 4.00 or 4.01 and LAN Manager.

This problem may be avoided by using a different version of DOS or LAN Manager software. If this option is not available, the WORD.EXE file can be patched so that it does not check for removable disk drives.

The patched WORD.EXE file will assume that the A and B drives are floppy disk drives, and that all other drives are fixed (logical) disk drives. If the floppy disk drives have a drive letter designation other than A or B, this patch should not be performed on WORD.EXE (if you do, Word may display incorrect prompts concerning disk drives). This change does not affect other software programs running on the computer.

To patch WORD.EXE for use on a DOS machine, do the following:

  Insert the Word 5.50 Setup disk in the floppy disk drive, and copy SETUP.EXE and WORD55.INF from the floppy disk to the Word 5.50 program directory on the local hard disk.   Insert the Word 5.50 Program 1 disk in the floppy disk drive, and copy the WDBF.EX$ from the floppy disk to the Word 5.50 program directory on the local hard disk.   Decompress WDBF.EX$ with the Setup program by typing the following command at the DOS prompt: setup /d wdbf.ex$ This command will create the uncompressed file WDBF.EXE (BYTEFIX utility) in the Word 5.50 program directory. The compressed WDBF.EX$ file may be deleted from the Word 5.50 program directory. Note: If your Word 5.50 disks contain files dated 2/1/91, the BYTEFIX utility (WDBF.EXE) will be located on the Thesaurus/Sample Files disk (5.25-inch) or the Program 2/Thesaurus disk (3.5-inch). This file is not compressed, so you do not need to run Setup to decompress it.   Verify that the WORD.EXE file has a size of 738281 bytes. If the WORD.EXE has a different size, do not attempt to patch the file. If the file size is correct, enter the command: wdbf word.exe 34473 “9” 42952 “9” 

= MORE INFORMATION =

If the patch to WORD.EXE prevents the proper use of the floppy disk drives, the WORD.EXE file can be restored to its original state by entering the following the command:

wdbf word.exe 34473 “3” 42952 “3”

For more information on using the BYTEFIX utility, type “WDBF” (without the quotation marks) at the DOS prompt without specifying any parameters.

KBCategory: kbother kbnetwork KBSubcategory: Additional reference words: ============================================================================= Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1994.