baugh@potomac.ads.com (Follower of Chaos) (02/24/91)
I've just gotten Windows 3.0, and have nothing but headaches trying to install it. First it did some funky stuff about 3/4's of the way through the setup program, and I RTFM'ed both the User's Guide and the Questions and Answers, and of course got to Step 4 in the Questions and Answers ... Call Microsoft. Wonderful. Well I called them up and try out their wonderful new "answer system"...and of course I didn't hear anything that solved my problem (it seemed to be all the same as the Q&A book) So, I tried to get back to a "real" person (but pressing 5 on the phone didn't work from some places in the answer system all you get is a replay of the last thing you heard...) So, call back and this time push the "get a real person" button...wait for 20 minutes on hold (MY phone bill, where's the 800 number!) and get through to a Tech, who after I dump all the stuff I have (config.sys which has the 3 lines the setup program put in, same configuration with my autoexec.bat, tell them my monitor type, BIOS, etc.) It ends up that he tells me "Award Bios previous to 3.04c can cause intermittant problems with Windows 3.0" ....SO 3 more phone calls, $110 bucks for new bios ( version 3.13...which I get sent next day air, so I get on with windows...) and of course, put new bios in to try it again....it gets a bit further through the setup and then of course, crapola. Damn. Anybody else got an idea before I turn my computer into a boat anchor? We're talking a machine with 2 run-of-the-mill Segate hard drives (western digital controler), generic hayes compatable modem (a ZOOM modem), Paradise Autoswitch EGA 350 card (with the autoselect & autodetect switches off of course...) generic EGA monitor and two generic Floppy drives. I've got a new logitech mouse (and have installed both the Windows, Logitech, drivers and have also tried it without any mouse installed at all...but same thing) It's a pretty vanilla machine, and I haven't had the slightest problem running anything (net software, games, etc). Windows comes up (well, starts up otay) but then I get video flakeyness starting at different times. It's unpredictable, sometimes it starts out slowly, i.e. a few bits get set to wrong colors...it's hard to describe...it usually happens after I try to open up something, say solitare, which will works fine for a couple minutes sometimes then blewy!, othertimes blewy! right away. I can only guess that their is something with the card or monitor I have, but I can't believe that there wouldn't be a driver for a Paradise EGA card. I've looked on the Windows supplimental driver disks, and there isn't any special driver for Paradise EGA cards, but there are a couple for Paradise VGA cards. Anybody out there got any helpful pointers?? I'm tired of throwing money at this thing.... -- Earl D. Baugh Jr. Advanced Decision Systems Internet : baugh@ads.com
cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) (02/28/91)
In article <1991Feb23.195243.21117@potomac.ads.com>, baugh@potomac.ads.com (Follower of Chaos) writes: > I've just gotten Windows 3.0, and have nothing but headaches > trying to install it. First it did some funky stuff about 3/4's of > [problems, problems, problems] > through the setup and then of course, crapola. Damn. Anybody else > got an idea before I turn my computer into a boat anchor? We're > -- > Earl D. Baugh Jr. In brief, the problems that Mr. Baugh is having (and the completely different, but just as frustrating problems that I am having), are the reason to buy a Macintosh, not a PC. I really, really like Windows -- when it works. If there were a smaller number of hardware configurations out there, it would probably work as well as the Mac. But there are so many BIOS versions (not all of which work with Windows), so many graphics cards, which seem to work just fine with every non-Windows program known, and the infamous DMRDVR.BIN problem, that's it's hard to let my enthusiasm for Windows overcome my anger at the fingerpointing and general inability to get Windows to just install and WORK! (I suppose if I weren't a software engineer, with over 10 years experience in pulling chips, fiddling with configurations, and dealing with complexity, it would be even worse). At this point I have invested at least five hours of time into fiddling with CONFIG.SYS, reinstalling Windows, talking to Microsoft Customer Support, talking to Club American Technologies Customer Support, installing new BIOS ROMs, and I still have a system that can't use extended memory. Increasingly, I toy with the idea of backing up all my stuff, translating the stuff I regularly use to the Mac, and buying a Mac -- except that my AT clone is worth so little that it won't buy much of a Mac. I can understand when a small company doesn't have the resources to test their software on every obscure BIOS version, graphics card, and memory board out there -- but damn it, Microsoft has enormous resources, and they aren't even trying! To add insult to injury, if Microsoft had included a list of BIOS versions known to fail with extended memory and Windows, I would have wasted a lot less time than I have, because I would have upgraded my BIOS immediately. I'm so sick of fighting this hopeless struggle, that I'm losing interest in Windows. -- Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid,pixar,tekbspa}!optilink!cramer "Well, maybe the Holocaust was right *for that culture*." -- a moral relativist with whom I work. You must be kidding! No company would hold opinions like mine!