Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!mcsun!unido!gmdzi!strobl From: strobl@gmdzi.UUCP (Wolfgang Strobl) Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms Subject: Re: Broken Window Keywords: program manager groups group files Message-ID: <3190@gmdzi.UUCP> Date: 9 Aug 90 18:12:08 GMT References: <38980@cci632.UUCP> <1990Aug8.171222.11281@cs.uoregon.edu> Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, F. R. Germany Lines: 39 akm@spencer.cs.uoregon.edu (Anant Kartik Mithal) writes: >In article <38980@cci632.UUCP> deb@cci632.UUCP (Deborah Brown) writes: >... >>I exited windows and started up again and was told that the main program group >>was damaged or invalid and had to be recreated. No problem. I opened the >>manual to find out what to do, but the manual was no help at all. I wound up >>reinstalling Windows. >I have had similar problems. I find that program manager groups "die" for >no obvious reason. A couple of times I think that I was trying to do "too >much", for example, running more than one copy of windows, at other >times I was not doing anything unusual. I too have corrupted groups now and then. Every other day I copy all group files (i.e. *.grp) into a backup directory. If a group file gets corrupted I simply copy the backup over the corrupted file. I haven't tested this much. If I start Windows on my machine at home in real mode, it pops up a few dialog boxes "Cannot open group file +$%&/()" (I translated the message from German into English). Instead of a file name, the message contains some random garbage. If I leave Windows after this message, the check box of the final message is grayed, so I cannot force Windows to write incomplete group datasets, this way. >I suggest that MS includes an option that allows us to save the program >manager groups without having to exit windows (similar to the save >changes dialog box that comes up when we quit windows.) A workaround which works for me is: I open a DOS window, tell the program manager to terminate Windows and check the "save groups" box. Windows first saves the groups and cancels the termination request because of the open DOS application, then. On a 386 this is quite fast. But I second your suggestion: there should be a save menu entry in the program manager. Wolfgang Strobl #include