Troubleshooting

One essential tool for troubleshooting Windows 3.x problems is Microsoft's Windows Resource Toolkit. This combination of a comprehensive reference and some utility tools is priced at around $30, and can't be beat for value. If you are responsible for keeping a number of Windows systems running, run, don't walk, to the nearest phone and order it now!

The toolkit is also freely available in Word for Windows format from ftp.cica.indiana.edu (and its mirror sites); while this version is complete, it is large, and will take significant time to ftp and download (not to mention print!).

BMP wallpaper won't display correctly

Some of the possible reasons are:
For 256-to-16 color dithering, you may try using a utility such as PaintShop Pro.

Frequent GPFs (General Protection Faults)

If you are experiencing frequent Windows 3.1 crashes, try starting Windows with the command: win /d:xsv

If the GPFs do not appear, add the line
VirtualHDIRQ=off
to the [386Enh] section of your system.ini file. If the GPFs contine, try: win /d:xs

If the GPFs do not appear, add the line
SystemROMBreakPoint=false
to the [386Enh] section of your system.ini file. If the GPFs contine, try: win /d:x

If the GPFs do not appear, add the line
EMMExclude=A000-EFFF
to the [386Enh] section of your system.ini file. While this will get Windows running more reliably, you should probably try to narrow down the range of memory that actually has to be excluded.

File Manager won't format floppies

If you are having trouble formatting floppies from File Manager, try adding one or more
DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS /D:# /F:#
lines to your config.sys; see your DOS manual for details.

Incorrect system version; reinstall the 386 enhanced version of Windows 93-01-29

If you get the above message when starting a DOS session, you are experiencing one of three potential problems:

Mouse hangs when using communications software

This problem is usually caused by a mouse and a modem being on the same serial port pair (either COM1/COM3, or COM2/COM4). Each pair shares a common interrupt due to restrictions of the original IBM PC architecture, and so can not be used simultaneously.

If you are experiencing this problem, you should move either your modem or mouse a different serial port.

Object Linking and Embedding (OLE 2.0) does not work 93-12-05

The early versions of the OLE libraries shipped with applications such as CorelDraw! had some deficiencies; if you are experiencing difficulties with using OLE, contact your application vendor for an OLE update.

Also, you should make sure you are running SHARE if you intend to use OLE 2.0; this is required for correct operation.

Parity errors with Windows 3.1 92-09-19

Parity errors are real, and detected reliably by Windows 3.1 (Windows 3.0 ignored them for the most part). Unfortunately most memory test programs do not properly test 32-bit memory accesses, and thus do not detect all possible memory problems. Environments such as Windows 3.1, Windows NT, Unix, Xenix and OS/2 2.0, however, do exercise this aspect and, as a result, report memory problems where the memory testers don't catch them.

Below are some of the possible causes for parity errors, in approximate order of likelyhood:

If you're willing to play with fire and gasoline (if, for example, you have 8-bit memory with no parity bit), you can disable parity checking by removing or commenting out the following line in the [386Enh] section of your system.ini file:
device=*parity

Note that this will disable your parity checking completely and may cause unexpected crashes or errors if your memory has parity errors!

Performance deterioration in a 386 Enhanced mode DOS session

The most likely cause of this type of a problem is slow memory. If your onboard memory is accessed with basically no wait states, but you have a slower memory expansion card, your machine will run slower whenever it is using those higher memory addresses. This will generally happen when you start a DOS session, and often result in 30-50% performance reductions using various benchmarks. The performance is actually also reduced within Windows, but it's difficult to notice this due to the lack of a suitable benchmark. The proper cure for this problem is to either upgrade your memory expansion card, or to correct whatever problem is causing your machine to access extended memory with such poor problem.

DOS application performace is also degraded by using a .PIF file (such as the default .PIF) with the Monitor Ports option enabled, but to a much smaller degree. With Monitor Ports disabled, DOS session performance should be within 5-10% of the performance under bare DOS.

Problems creating a permanent swapfile in Windows 3.0

First of all, you must be running in real mode to be able to create a permanent swapfile. Second, You must not have any SUBSTed drives or Windows won't create the swapfile. Once the swapfile has been created, you can re-SUBST your drives (although the use of SUBST is not recommended in general). You also can't create a permanent swapfile on a drive partitioned with third-party software such as SpeedStor.

If you are installing on a Novell client, you must first disable the receive network messages feature (using the network icon in the Control Panel) and reboot. Once you have installed the swapfile, turn messages back on again.

Program Manager claims only 8 KB of free memory 92-12-30

In Windows 3.1, it is possible that Program Manager (and other Windows 3.1 programs) will claim that you have only 8 KB memory when you really have 8 MB (that is, it chops off the kilobytes part and displays only megabytes but with "KB" after the figure).

This is caused by a null thousands separator in Control Panel's International settings. Set the separator to either blank or some character to restore correct behaviour.

Using a slow expansion memory board with Windows 92-11-11

If some of your memory is on a slower memory expansion board (such as a standard ISA bus memory board, operating at 8 MHz in a 33 MHz system, you may experience serious performance deterioration as soon as Windows starts using the slower memory on the expansion board. (For example, see section Performance deterioration in a 386 Enhanced mode DOS session.)

Unfortunately Windows 3.1 does not allow you to specify memory ranges to be used for a RAMdisk or disk cache, and thus you can't control which memory gets used first. In this case, the best solution is to use QEMM-386, which allows you to do just that. Place your RAMdisk and disk cache in the slow memory (they will not suffer a significant performance drop), and leave the fast memory on the motherboard available for Windows' use.

Windows 3.0 refuses to run without a file called WINA20.386

Quoting from the MS-DOS 5.0 readme.txt file:

  4.3 WINA20.386 File
  
Setup installs a read-only file named WINA20.386 in your root
directory.  If you move the WINA20.386

  file to a different directory, do the following:
    Add a SWITCHES=/W command to your CONFIG.SYS file.
          Add a DEVICE=[drive:][path]]WINA20.386 command to the [386Enh]
          section of your Windows system.ini file.
          
  Windows 3.1 does not require this file to be present.
  Windows 3.1 hangs or crashes during startup
  Try starting Windows with the command line 
  win /b
       
  If it repeats the same crash or hang, take a look at the file bootlog.txt
in your Windows directory.  It will have two lines such as 
  LoadStart = SYSTEM.DRV
       and
  LoadSuccess = SYSTEM.DRV
       for every driver succesfully loaded; the culprit driver will show
a line such as
  LoadFail = WIN3-64S.DRV Failure code is 05
       
  If it's a standard Windows driver, try reloading it from diskettes;
otherwise, for a third-party driver, try to locate an updated driver
either from cica, your supplier or direct from the manufacturer.

Windows 3.1 hangs or waits a long time on exit

Windows 3.1 tries to reset the mouse driver on exit, and some IBM PS/2 models have great difficulty with this procedure, timing out only after an extended wait. In order to avoid the problem, add the line

InitPS2MouseAtExit=False

to the [386Enh] section of your system.ini file.

Windows 3.1 Resource Kit won't install

The most common WRK installation problem is an excessively long path. If you have problems, try reducing the length of your path for the installation, and you should be OK.

Windows 3.x waits a long time on startup

One possible reason is the use of a serial mouse on COM2 instead of COM1. If you have a serial mouse, Windows will first attempt to find it (with great persistence) on COM1, before it looks on COM2. If your mouse is on COM2, move it to COM1.

Using a temporary swapfile instead of a permanent one for 386 enhanced mode also slows down the startup process, but not to even nearly the same extent as the serial mouse problem.

With Windows 3.0, it has also been reported that adding too many fonts through the Control Panel will drastically slow down the startup, and with both Windows 3.0 and 3.1, a very large number of ATM fonts will also slow down the startup process.

Windows for Workgroups 3.11 claims ports are in use 94-02-25

In some cases upgrading Windows for Workgroups 3.11 over Windows 3.1 does not update your system.ini file correctly. If you are getting this error when attempting to print or use a serial port, check to see that the following lines are in the [386Enh] section of your system.ini, and add them if necessary:

       device=serial.386
       device=vcomm.386
       device=lpt.386
       Windows and DOS
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Last modified: Thu Nov 30 21:20:49 1995