How to Troubleshoot Win32s Installation Problems
Last reviewed: May 21, 1998
Article ID: Q106715
|1.25a 1.30 1.30a
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SUMMARYThe installation guide for Win32s that is included in the Win32 SDK recommends running Freecell to verify that the installation was successful. This article discusses some of the errors that may occur when trying to run Freecell on an unsuccessful installation. The article also contains a list of corrective actions to help you reinstall Win32s.
Possible SymptomsOne of the following symptoms may occur when running Freecell if the installation is not successful:
Possible Step-by-Step SolutionUse the following steps when Win32s does not install correctly:
TITLE : PRB: Display Problems with Win32s and the S3 Driver
Without this line in the SYSTEM.INI file, Win32s displays the following error when you launch FreeCell or any 32-bit application:
- Win32s - Error:
Improper installation. Windows requires W32s.386 in order to run. Reinstall Win32s.Windows Setup installs the VMCPD VxD to handle floating point exceptions, but it is possible that another driver was installed replacing the VMCPD VxD. Win32s only needs the VMCPD driver to handle floating point exceptions if a coprocessor is present. But the Win32s setup program checks for this driver unconditionally.
The driver interferes with installing Win32s because the LaserMaster drivers create a WINSPOOL device. The extension is ignored when the file name portion of a path matches a device name. As a result, when Setup tries to write to Winspool.drv, it fails. It fails because it attempts to write to WINSPOOL. In fact, any Win32-based application that tries to link to Winspool.drv also fails; however, most Win32-based applications that print under Win32s do not use the WINSPOOL application programming interfaces (APIs) because they are not supported in Win32s. As a result, you can usually just disable this driver while installing Win32s, and then re-enable it afterwards. To disable the driver, you need to turn the following three lines in the [386ENH] of the System.ini file into comments.
device = lmharold.386 device = lmmi device = lmcap
Edit the Win32s.ini file on your hard drive. Change SETUP = 1 to read SETUP = 0. Reboot your computer and reinstall Win32s.
For more information on how to delete the previous version of Win32s from your computer, please see the following Knowledge Base article:
TITLE : How to Remove Win32s
What to Do If the Previous Steps Don't Solve the ProblemIf you still receive errors when running Freecell, compare the binaries on your hard drive with those on the CD-ROM. Use the MS-DOS program Filecomp.exe, Comp.exe, or Fc.exe and do a binary compare. For example, if you have the Win32 SDK CD-ROM, type the following:
fc /b <system>\win32s\w32s.386 <cd>:\mstools\win32s\nodebug\w32s.386
fc /b <system>\win32s\w32s.386 <cd>:\msvc32s\win32s\retail\w32s.386
The results of the compare will be "FC: no differences encountered" if the binaries were correctly installed. If the binaries are not the same, you might have a bad copy of the files or a bad compact disc.
Freecell.hlp was meant to be used with Winhlp32.exe. Freecell.hlp uses the advanced features of WINHLP32 for full-text searching. Winhelp.exe, which runs under Windows version 3.1, does not support this. As a result, each time Freecell.hlp tries to bind the Find button to the full-text searching APIs, it fails, and Windows Help displays the message box. You can still read the information in the help file, and you can use the Search button to do keyword searches.
ARTICLE ID: Q159263 PRB: "One of your System Components is out of date" Error
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