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Windows 2000 Support Page

General recommendations when running Supernova, Hal, Lunar and LunarPlus version 4.01 under Windows 2000

Doing the following will ensure that Supernova, Hal, Lunar and LunarPlus will run optimally under Windows 2000:

Picture of the Windows 2000 Mouse properties dialog box

Picture of the Windows 2000 Display properties dialog box

Picture of the Windows 2000 hardware acceleration property sheet

 

 

Troubleshooting

Here are some troubleshooting tips:

Unable to start the Windows graphics interceptor

If you receive the error message "Unable to start the Windows graphics interceptor" when attempting to run Hal, Lunar, LunarPlus, or Supernova, then do the following:

  1. Log on as the Administrator, or someone who has local Administrator privileges on the workstation.
  2. Run the program DOLCFGNT.EXE (located in the Hal, Lunar, LunarPlus or Supernova program folder).
  3. Re-start Windows 2000 and then logon as normal.

The reason that you received this error message is that the installation of Hal, Lunar, LunarPlus and Supernova under Windows 2000 requires your PC's hardware settings in the Windows registry to be altered in order to install a video driver interceptor. The Dolphin installation program cannot alter these registry settings unless you have Administrator privileges.

Please refer to the Dolphin Installation Guide for further details.

Speech synthesizer/Braille display problems

Firstly, make sure that you turn on your speech synthesizer or Braille display before starting Hal or Supernova, then consult the manufacturer's instructions before referring to the on-line SAM user manual.

Orpheus does not speak

Firstly, check all the Windows volume controls. Both the wave channel and the main volume may need to be turned up. Secondly, Orpheus is limited to only trying to communicate with the sound card a few times when it first starts. If a Windows system sound is playing while Orpheus is trying to communicate with the card then Orpheus may fail to speak. In this case, try re-starting your Dolphin software.

Please refer to the Orpheus manual for further details.

Refreshing the off-screen model

If your screen reader starts to announce only the keys you are pressing and is not reading anything from the screen, then either the current window is full of graphics or owner drawn controls, or in certain circumstances the off-screen model may need refreshing.

To update the off-screen model:

    Press LEFT CONTROL+SEMICOLON

Page Fault problems on networks

If you experience random "page faults" when running the software from a network file server then please try installing it to a local hard disk. If the software works correctly from a local disk then there is a problem with your network configuration.

Page faults can be caused by the network protocol timing out when the operating system is requesting data from the network file server. This problem can be reduced by doing one or more of the following:

Blue Screen of Death on start-up

Supernova, Hal, Lunar and LunarPlus should all work successfully with any video card that is on the Windows 2000 Hardware Compatibility List and has a Microsoft-supplied driver for it.

If your workstation has a Windows 2000 video driver that is not 100% Windows 2000-compliant then you might experience a "Blue Screen of Death" when Windows 2000 re-boots after installing Supernova, Hal, Lunar or LunarPlus.  In the unlikely event of this occurring, do the following:

  1. Start your PC and press F8 and select "Enable VGA mode" to start Windows 2000 in VGA mode.
  2. After Windows 2000 has started in VGA mode you can then use the "dolcfgnt -r" command to remove Dolphin's video driver interceptor.  So go to Start Menu ->Run and type:

                "C:\Program Files\SnovaNT\dolcfgnt.exe" -r

and then press ENTER.  Remember to replace C:\Program Files\SnovaNT with the full path to the main program directory of the Dolphin product that you have.

  1. Re-boot your PC and you will then have Windows 2000 back working again.

Before re-installing Supernova, Hal, Lunar or LunarPlus, try using a Microsoft-certified video driver, or a different compatible video driver for your video card. For instance, if your video card has an S3 chipset, try using a Microsoft supplied generic S3 video driver, or search Microsoft's web site for a later version of your video card's drivers.

 

 

Miscellaneous

Changing the color-depth

If you change the color-depth the mouse pointer may disappear or change to solid black. To fix this, re-start your machine in the new color-depth.  This problem only occurs if you are using a color-depth that is different to the one that you started your machine in.   This is caused by a bug in Windows 2000.

Popping up the Supernova, Hal, Lunar or LunarPlus Control Panel

If you press LEFT CONTROL+SPACEBAR to enter Supernova, Hal, Lunar or LunarPlus' Control Panel, it may not always pop-up to the foreground.  This is caused by a new feature in Windows 2000 that prevents applications from having a hot key to pop themselves to the foreground.  We have managed to workaround this "new feature" in most situations.  However, if the Control Panel fails to appear, you may need to use ALT+TAB to switch to it.  This problem can also occur with other dialog boxes, such as the SAM Setup dialog box.  We are considering what to do about this problem.

Computer Management console

The Windows 2000 "Computer Management" console does not automatically speak.  This is because Supernova, Hal and LunarPlus think that the focus is on one of the toolbar buttons.  This is a bug in Supernova/Hal/LunarPlus 4.01 and will be fixed in a future release.

To workaround this problem you must turn off the "standard toolbar" from the View menu, Customize option. However, the Computer Management console does not remember your custom settings.  However, Microsoft suggest the following:

It is possible to save a console with custom settings for the snap-in compmgmt.msc.   To complete this task complete the steps below:

  1. Open a MMC window, go to Start Menu  ->Run and type MMC.
  2. From the Console menu, choose Add\Remove Snap-in.
  3. Add Computer Management.
  4. Make the changes needed and from Console menu, choose Save.
  5. The default location of the console is a per-user Administrative Tools folder (located at systemroot\Documents and Settings\user\Start Menu\Programs\Administrative Tools), it is then available in the Administrative Tools folder on the Programs menu.

Multiple monitor support

Multiple display monitors are not supported at this time.   Supernova, Hal, Lunar and LunarPlus will only read and/or magnify the contents of the primary display.

Mouse droppings

You may notice some minor screen corruption or "mouse droppings" when you are using the mouse to control a scrolling window.  E.g. Opening or closing a tree view item.  This is a bug in Supernova/Lunar/LunarPlus version 4.01 and will be fixed in a future release.  It is purely a cosmetic error and does not occur when you have magnification on, or have any affect on the speech.   Also it does not occur with all video cards.

Lineview mode "hangs"

When you enter Lineview mode the machine may apparently "hang" and not respond to any key presses.  This is caused by the shift key state getting stuck.  To free a "hung" machine press the left SHIFT key and then the right SHIFT key.  This will clear the shift key state.  You can then start using Lineview mode normally. To avoid the problem, turn Num-lock off, or change the start Lineview mode hot key so that it is not a SHIFT and NUMERIC KEYPAD key combination. This is a bug in Supernova/Lunar/LunarPlus 4.01 and will be fixed in a future release.

Orpheus stutters

If you experience stuttering with the Orpheus Software Speech Synthesizer, switch to using "Close on Mute" rather than "Fast Mute" in the Orpheus Configuration Panel which you can get to from Start Menu ->Programs ->Orpheus ->Configure Orpheus.  You can also try turning down the Audio hardware acceleration from Start Menu ->Settings ->Control Panel ->Sounds and Multimedia ->Audio property sheet ->Sound playback group ->Advanced button ->Performance property sheet ->Hardware Acceleration slider.   We have observed that this can reduce clicking and stuttering on some machines.

Untrained graphics objects

Some graphics objects are not trained and some cannot be trained - they are "forgotten" after re-starting of the machine.  This is a problem in version 4.01 of Supernova and Hal and will be fixed in a future release.

Navigation mode exits

If Navigation mode exits unexpectedly when navigation in some applications.  E.g. WordPad, turn off "Move mouse pointer" in the Navigation mode settings.  The motion of the mouse pointer is causing screen changes which is upsetting Supernova and Hal. This is a problem in version 4.01 of Supernova and Hal and will be fixed in a future release.

Upgrading Windows 2000

If you upgrade your copy of Windows 2000 to a new version, the upgrade process will overwrite some of Supernova/Hal/Lunar/LunarPlus' settings in the registry so after an upgrade, they will no longer function.

To avoid this problem we recommend that you remove the Dolphin video driver interceptor before upgrading and re-install it after the upgrade is complete.  If you don't, you can probably re-install the interceptor by running dolcfgnt.exe after upgrading, however this may not work in all situations.  We are still investigating this problem.

If you are unable to install the interceptor, try de-installing it. If it tells you that another application has hooked in front of it, please contact Dolphin technical support before continuing.