Digital Workshop

I use OPUS V2.6 (ok you can stop laughing now), but its been great for me without a single problem. However, a range of publications that I created 18 months ago worked fine under Windows 98. The CD just autoran and started!
I've just popped the CD in under Windows XP Pro and the autorun works, then tries to run my Start.exe file and stops with the "shall I send a report to Microsoft" error!
I tried it in Windows 2000 Pro and the same. Does this mean all the publications on the CD-Roms can no longer run under these operating systems!
I know most of you are probably on latest versions of Opus, and that this question is probably "old hat", but any advice please?

Mark

Not sure but why do you have a start.exe file. The autorun should start the publication which is usually the name of the pub with an exe extention. Or were you just refering to the name of the pub in a generic sence. If you click directly on the exe file on your cd does it run or give you the same error. Could be a mistake in the ini file somehow.

Hi,

Thank you for your enquiry.

As we have received no other reports of this problem, I am inclined to think that the problem may be system-related and the nature of the crash sounds like a problem communicating with the currently-installed graphics driver or DirectX components. However, it is unusual for this problem to affect two machines at the same time.

Please first try updating your version of Opus to the latest version using the 2.81 patch, which is available from ftp://ftp.digitalworkshop.com/pub/opusu ... _SR281.exe.

Once updated, please initialise the Opus registry settings using the following procedure:

- Ensure that Opus is not running
- Click Start > Programs > Illuminatus Opus
- Position the mouse over the Illuminatus Opus shortcut (which launches the program), but do not click the left-mouse button
- Position two fingers over the Ctrl and Alt keys in the bottom-left of the keyboard, but do not press the keys
- Now left-click on the Illuminatus Opus shortcut and immediately press and hold the Ctrl and Alt keys simultaneously
- Illuminatus Opus will start to launch, but a dialog box should appear asking you if you wish to remove all registry settings. Click Yes to confirm

Now load in your original publication and republish, ensuring that you enable the option to create an autorun.inf file. Now burn the resulting publication and autorun.inf file to a recordable CD and test in the Windows XP and 2000 systems.

If the problem persits, I would recommend updating the graphics drivers and DirectX components on these systems using the following steps:

Please first visit www.microsoft.com/windows/directx and follow the instructions given at the web site to locate, download and install the latest version of DirectX.

Once DirectX has been updated and the system restarted, please use the following procedure to update your graphics drivers:

- Click Start > Settings > Control Panel > System
- Select the Device Manager tab (if you are using Windows 2000 or XP, you will need to select the Hardware tab and then click the Device Manager button)
- You should see a list of hardware types currently installed on your machine. Click on the plus-sign next to the Display Adapters entry to display the corresponding component
- Make a note of the make, model and any other information displayed
- Now visit the manufacturer's website (in most cases, this will be either www.nvidia.com, www.ati.com or www.matrox.com) and click the Download Drivers link on the homepage
- Follow the on-screen instructions to locate the latest drivers for your model of graphics card. Once located, download and install the drivers using any advice given on the manufacturer's site

Once the latest drivers have been installed and the system restarted, please insert the publication CD and test to see if the problem has been resolved.

I hope this helps. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further queries.

Kind regards,

First, thanks for the great advice. I tried what was said (unfortunately, I don't have the original files, so can't re-publish!).
However, what I just tried was to drag all the files from the CD on to the Desktop, then double-clicked the Start.exe (In answer to a previous posting, I renamed the publication file to Start as I felt this seemed more professional!), the program now works.

So it must be something to do with the CD running?????

I'll try and burn these files back to CD-Rom and re-try!
I'll keep you informed as to progress - any suggestions would help.

I tried reburning, still no joy. However, in both Win 2000 and Win XP if I drag the disc content to the desktop and run the Start.exe (publication file) it works fine.
If you can help solve the reasons why, id be grateful. By the way, when the application starts the user has to enter a serial number. I had this write a file to the Windows/Temp folder, and it was encoded. Could this be why it works from CD-Rom on Win 98 but NOT Win 2000 or XP, UNLESS the files are removed from the CD and placed on the desktop????

Any suggestions?

If this is the reason why, I don't have original files anymore, so could I write a new autorun file to fix this problem...

Thanks

Hi,

Thank you for your enquiry.

This sounds similar to an issue which affected very early versions of Opus whereby any publication containing 'progressive' JPEG files would cause the publication to exit unexpectedly when run from CD (although running the file from the hard disk worked fine). Are you certain that this publication was published in version 2.6 and not a much earlier build (such as 2001b or 2001c)?

Without the original publication .imp file, I'm afraid that there is very little we can do to test this theory and I can only recommend recreating the part of the publication (for example, the first chapter) using the original image files (assuming these still exist) and the latest 2.81 build of Opus. Once you have recreated part of the publication, publish and test to see if the CD now runs correctly on Windows 2000 and XP systems.

Please let me know how you get on.

Kind regards,

Just a quick note Robin to let you know how I got on with the Publication.
I updated from 2.6 to the 2.8 version. Unfortunately, I had to re-do the whole publication - But used the mpg video clips from the original.

Re-Published, and it works fine in Win XP and 2000 now.

Thanks for your help.