rzi@philpav.tds.philips.se (Roman Zielinski) (09/17/90)
Now I'm *realy* tired on Micrografx Designer 3.0! Until today it crashed *nicely* when using clipboard in win enh. 386 mode . Sometimes you could even do what you wanted to by using "win /r" or even "win /2". But today It crashed my system when running in real mode! And it has been a **real crash** - all my directories starting with that one used by designer until the end of alphabet (whey were sorted A.....Z by norton's "sd") has been crashed!!!! so now I'm reconstructing my system... I think that it should be some kind of penalty for manufacturers not testing satisfactory their programs before serial delivery to custommers! I vote for a new group comp.sw.blacklist where we could put names of all the garbage software we buy for expensive money. Designer 3.0 was not cheep (6000 SEK + VAT) - but this crap has never been tested in windows 3.0 environment. (what the word *tested* and *quality* realy means???) So simple every day drawings like organisation charts, you know rectangles with names inside connected with some lines (nothing strange at all) crash designer in 100% of cases! I heard about some updates fixing this BUG to be comming 12 sept 1990, but you must get it, probably software shops do not have it yet.... I'm angry ... I'm furious ... I hate Micrografx! I hate their crap! +-------------------------------------------+ _--~--_ | Roman M. Zielinski | ---- / \ ---- | Philips Tele & Data System AB | ---- ( |^^^| ) ---- | S-115 84 Stockholm, Sweden | ---- \ \ / / --- | tel +46 8 782 1373 | |=====| +-------------------------------------------+ |=====| | NET ADDR: rzi@pav.tds.philips.se | |=====| +-------------------------------------------+ ~~U~~
bnathan@ncratl.Atlanta.NCR.COM (Bob Nathan) (09/18/90)
rzi@philpav.tds.philips.se (Roman Zielinski) writes: >Now I'm *realy* tired on Micrografx Designer 3.0! ... >I'm angry ... I'm furious ... I hate Micrografx! I hate their crap! ... I personally wouldn't rush to blame Micrografx. I just had my disk trashed, and all I was running was MASM 5.1. Of course, it is possible that MASM wasn't "Windows tested" either, and I know that Designer is supposed to be a Windows App. But methinks there's a few little bugs in Windows 3 that no amount of 'application' testing is going to fix. (NO, I'm not using permanant swap files.) (Maybe NASA is using Windows 3 to find and fix the Columbia's fuel leaks?) R.Nathan@Atlanta.NCR.COM {hurrah, we got the '96 Olympics!}
ajai@sce.carleton.ca (Ajai Sehgal) (09/18/90)
rzi@philpav.tds.philips.se (Roman Zielinski) writes: >Now I'm *realy* tired on Micrografx Designer 3.0! >Until today it crashed *nicely* when using clipboard in win enh. 386 mode . >Sometimes you could even do what you wanted to by using "win /r" or even >"win /2". >But today It crashed my system when running in real mode! And it has been >a **real crash** - all my directories starting with that one used by designer >until the end of alphabet (whey were sorted A.....Z by norton's "sd") >has been crashed!!!! so now I'm reconstructing my system... >I'm angry ... I'm furious ... I hate Micrografx! I hate their crap! >| Roman M. Zielinski | ---- / \ ---- I've been using Designer 3.0 for the past two months and have never had a crash or anything but flawless performance. Could you be having hardware problems who's symptoms become apparent in Designer 3.0 ? Ajai.
jmann@angmar.sw.stratus.com (Jim Mann) (09/19/90)
In article <615@ncratl.Atlanta.NCR.COM>, bnathan@ncratl.Atlanta.NCR.COM (Bob Nathan) writes: |>I personally wouldn't rush to blame Micrografx. I just had my disk |>trashed, and all I was running was MASM 5.1. Of course, it is possible |>that MASM wasn't "Windows tested" either, and I know that Designer |>is supposed to be a Windows App. But methinks there's a few little |>bugs in Windows 3 that no amount of 'application' testing is going to |>fix. (NO, I'm not using permanant swap files.) |> I'm curious. Every now and then someone posts "my disk got trashed and I think Windows did it." What do you mean by "trashed"? Was a file damaged? Was the FAT or boot sector damaged? When did you detect the problem -- immediately or when you tried to access the file that was damaged or whatever? What error messages did you get (sector not found?)? How did you fix the damage? Jim Mann Stratus Computer jmann@es.stratus.com
karl@pdn.paradyne.com (Karl Schlenther) (09/20/90)
While Designer has never corrupted my disk, I have to agree with the sentiment
that Micrografx has a quality problem with this product.
I started using Migrografx products with Draw under Windows version 2.03 and
was very happy with the way I could copy and paste my drawings into Write.
When Designer came out, I eagerly cajoled my manager to buy me a copy...
just imagine, an *improved* Draw, more features, more productivity!
Through many upgrades, I have persisted with Designer, now at 3.01, and the
#$*& copy to clipboard function (using windows metafile PICTURE rendering)
has *never* worked reliably. It is indescribably frustrating to spend hours
on a beautiful drawing and then not to be able to copy it into a Write
document. It is still more frustrating to spend still more hours trying this
and that workaround attempt trying to get the drawing to copy. You have to
do the strangest things, like moving all the text to the top, or changing
fonts, or not using certain types of drawing tools (beware of fancy arrowheads!).
There is almost a cult-thing here about using Designer workarounds...magical
tricks various people have come up with for making it work... some real, others
probably superstition. What a productivity WASTE!
I really hoped that with Win30 and W4W, Designer would finally be tamed. Ha.
Now I get "Unrecoverable Application Error" when I paste a Designer image into
my word processor. The latest "trick" is to avoid laserjet cartridge fonts and
only use graphic fonts. I tell you, I think I am going to learn to use Corel Draw!
In closing, I have to admit that Designer works very nicely when Designer is the
only tool you use. But that isn't why we use Windows, is it. The whole idea is
for applications to share what they do best with other applications. Why doesn`t
Micrografx test their support for the Clipboard better? I feel it is inexcusable.
--
Karl Schlenther AT&T Paradyne
karl@pdn.paradyne.com Mail stop LG-132
{uunet,peora}!pdn!karl P.O. Box 2826
Phone: (813) 530-8242 Largo, FL 34649-2826phil@brahms.amd.com (Phil Ngai) (09/22/90)
In article <1990Sep20.114534.27982@pdn.paradyne.com> karl@pdn.paradyne.com (Karl Schlenther) writes: |While Designer has never corrupted my disk, I have to agree with the sentiment |that Micrografx has a quality problem with this product. Let me add that recently I have been having problems too. My setup is Designer 3.01, Win3 in 386 Enhanced mode with Mylex 386sx motherboard. One of my drawings has been flaky. Sometimes the machine crashes. Sometimes part of the drawing is missing. I hope to look at Corel Draw also. -- Phil Ngai, phil@amd.com {uunet,decwrl,ucbvax}!amdcad!phil Freedom is dead, long live privacy!
kevinc@cs.athabascau.ca (Kevin Crocker) (09/25/90)
In article <1990Sep21.204055.6132@amd.com> phil@brahms.amd.com (Phil Ngai) writes: >Sometimes part of the drawing is missing. I hope to look at Corel >Draw also. Let's start hearing from Corel users!!!!!! I want to buy one of these and was all set to go for Designer when all this kafuffle started now of course I'm hopelessly confused again. But then, I allways seem to be confused. :-) Kevin -- Kevin "auric" Crocker Athabasca University UUCP: ...!{alberta,ncc}!atha!kevinc Inet: kevinc@cs.AthabascaU.CA
jaz@icd.ab.com (Jack A. Zucker) (09/25/90)
Well, friday I popped up dos in a window and tried to run a DOS program. I got the message, "Sector not found reading drive C:". I typed "exit" returning me to windows. I promptly quit windows telling it not to save it's configuration. Upon running chkdsk I encountered multiple problems. Chkdsk could not repair the disk. No matter what I did after that, I would get the sector not found error. I suspect that windows overwrote the boot sector disk information table and dos did not totally understand the geometry. I had to completely re-install everything. This has happened to me several times. I would have to conclude that Windows has severe bugs. (So what else is new ) -Jaz | Jack A Zucker {cwjcc,pyramid,decvax,uunet}!jaz@icd.ab.com | | Allen-Bradley Company, Inc. or ICCGCC::ZUCKER | | 747 Alpha Drive | Highland Hts., OH 44143 phone: (216) 646-4668 FAX: (216) 646-4484 |
robert@hemingway (Robert Plamondon) (09/26/90)
I had similar problems, and I cleverly called Micrografx Technical
Support. They quickly traced the problem to my WIN.INI file; I had
kept my Windows 2.0 WIN.INI file and edited in the new 3.0 lines,
rather than letting Windows start over with a new WIN.INI. This
causes mysterious problems. I deleted my Windows directory structure
and reinstalled Windows (I wanted to be absolutely sure any weirdness
was gotten rid of). Everything now works fine.
There's also a bug somewhere in Designer. If I understand correctly,
somebody goofed and, rather than reading the TEMP environment
variable, refers to C:\TEMP explicitly somewhere in the program.
Some problems will apparently clear up if you create a C:\TEMP
directory and put:
set TEMP=C:\TEMP
set TMP=C:\TEMP
in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.
Finally, if you have any problems, call Micrografx Technical Support!
They put the phone number on the first page of all their manuals.
-- Robert
--
Robert Plamondon
robert@weitek.COMrobert@hemingway (Robert Plamondon) (09/26/90)
In article <1880@abvax.UUCP> jaz@icd.ab.com (Jack A. Zucker) writes: >Well, friday I popped up dos in a window and tried to run a DOS program. >I got the message, "Sector not found reading drive C:". One possibility is that Windows is not a culprit in the sense that it's trashing the disk, but instead it's simply using the disk more than other applications, and is turning up more problems. In UPGRADING AND REPAIRING PCS from Que Books (a wonderful book that answers a lot of hardware questions), the author claims that stepper-motor hard drives often need to have a low-level reformat done every year or so, due to the poor lifetime tolerances and poor mechanical tolerance in general. Having a sector disappear is a typical symptom. Windows and windows applications create many large files (spooler temporary files, swap files, backup files) during a session, so any problems with the disk will be more likely to be turned up. I have a lot of experience with dead hard disks because I've run a BBS for almost five years, and I use cheap Seagate drives that don't run forever (not that any of them do). I also get them repaired the first time they break, which give another 1-2 years of service out of them. After they break the second time, I throw them away. But a "bad sector" error doesn't usually mean a broken disk; the disk can be revivified more often than not by a low-level reformat. I recommend: 1. Back up the entire hard disk with FASTBACK (or some other real backup program; anything but BACKUP). 2. Do a low-level reformat of the disk. The easy way is to get the HFORMAT/HOPTIMUM disk from Paul Mace Software (available in many software stores), which can reformat disks non-destructively by reading a track, reformatting it, and writing the data back. This means you won't have to bother restoring from backups (though I'd make the backup anyway, if I were you). If you use the AT Advanced Diagnostic Disk (I think that's the name -- I haven't used it in a while), you have to do a low-level format, run FDISK, then run a DOS FORMAT, then restore from backups. 3. If the disk refuses to behave itself, consider having it repaired instead of junking it. (If you're rich enough, replace it with something bigger and faster.) Don't buy a stepper-motor drive if you can afford a voice-coil drive. Voice-coil drives are far more reliable. Also faster. -- Robert -- Robert Plamondon robert@weitek.COM