feinberg@acsu.buffalo.edu (john a feinberg) (06/17/91)
A while ago, I put up a post complaining that the desktop background pattern on my IIsi was insisting on staying black and white. Whenever I called up the 'General' control panel to change it to something else, all it gave me were black and white choices--no color! This problem usually came up after booting my computer from a system 6.0.7 floppy. The first time, I solved it by te- diously reinstalling the system on the hard drive, carefully adding the right extensions, control panels, and resources when the installer was done. It wor- ked, but it took a long time! The next time, I figured I'd try installing it on the 'backup' hard drive, and then only copy the system file. After I in- stalled the system on the backup hard drive, the desktop background was in color booting from the original hard drive! I don't know why things work this way, but it is a little more convenient. Next time, I'll install a minimal system on the backup hard drive! It shouldn't take too long to do. John Feinberg SUNY Buffalo
pejacoby@mmm.serc.3m.com (Paul E. Jacoby) (06/20/91)
In article <80192@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> feinberg@acsu.buffalo.edu (john a feinberg) writes: >A while ago, I put up a post complaining that the desktop background pattern >on my IIsi was insisting on staying black and white. Whenever I called up the >'General' control panel to change it to something else, all it gave me were >black and white choices--no color! This problem usually came up after booting >my computer from a system 6.0.7 floppy. The first time, I solved it by te- >diously reinstalling the system on the hard drive, carefully adding the right >extensions, control panels, and resources when the installer was done. It wor- >ked, but it took a long time! The next time, I figured I'd try installing it >on the 'backup' hard drive, and then only copy the system file. After I in- >stalled the system on the backup hard drive, the desktop background was in >color booting from the original hard drive! I don't know why things work this >way, but it is a little more convenient. Next time, I'll install a minimal >system on the backup hard drive! It shouldn't take too long to do. John (and all stricken with this problem), This same thing drove me nuts for a couple days after I added my color board and monitor to my SE/30. After doing lots of things (rebuilding the desktop, zapping PRAM, clenching my teeth :), I had a flash of inspirational thought. Early that month, I had found a cdev called DeskPattern. It puts a funky color deskpattern on your system by messing with the System file resources! In the docs, there was the statement "DeskPattern modifies ppat ID=16". Sure enough, that was the cause of the 'black and white only' situation. It turns out that if ppat ID=16 is modified to be anything other than a gray background (alternate white and black pixels), you will loose the ability to set a color desktop pattern in the General Control Panel! Replacing ppat ID=16 with a virgin copy from my System Tools disk resulted in a clean system, one which now has a color desktop. Yay! I hope this helps someone out; I know it is something I will _never_ forget to check :-0 -- | Paul E. Jacoby, 3M Company, 3M Center, 235-3F-27 | | Maplewood, MN 55144-1000 .-----------------------------------| | => pejacoby@3m.com | I'm afraid this is getting | | (612) 737-3211 | too silly! |