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From: nelson_p@apollo.HP.COM (Peter Nelson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer
Subject: RE programs crashing in Desqview
Message-ID: <48e5784c.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>
Date: 27 Feb 90 16:01:00 GMT
Sender: root@apollo.HP.COM
Distribution: usa
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Apollo Division - Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 45




 I recently posted a problem about some simple C programs
 crashing in Desqview in graphics mode.  I called Quarterdeck.
 [ Warning: due to recent new releases Quarterdeck's tech support
 staff is swamped.  I called Desqview during their recommended 
 "light" period and had to wait on hold for 25 minutes, at 
 Massachusetts to California long distance phone rates.]
 They suggested switching the ATi VGAwonder card to 8 bits 
 or, as a diagnostic measure, removing QEMM.  

 I chose the latter and the problem seemed to go away.  Of 
 course so did most of my memory.  Any idea what this says 
 about the problem?  
       
 BTW, before deciding to buy Desqview I had a couple of conversations 
 with their tech support staff to try to assess the risks in using 
 such a product.  One area I focused on was the graphics environment
 They said that they can virtualize it, I expressed doubt.  One major
 area of doubt was color LUT ("palette") collisions.  I said I didn't
 see any way they could keep one application's changing of the 
 color look-up-table from affecting colors in other windows.  They
 said, in effect, "no problem".   Probably they meant, "no problem
 for us".   I certainly have had "no problem" in clobbering the
 colors in one window by changing the LUTs from a program in another
 window.   A glance at the manual shows that this is to be expected.
 So Quarterdeck's another company whose tech support needs to have
 a better understanding of their product.

 They DO attempt to read-save-and-restore the LUTS for switching
 windows but this doesn't work reliably.  I've had cases where the 
 colors do not return to their previous state when the other program
 ends.

 BTW, I had another problem running Desqview yesterday.  I was formatting
 a pile of 3.5" disks in a Desqview window (one of two that were open)
 and I got an error from Desqview's protection mechanism indicating 
 that the DOS "format" had committed a protection violation!   I
 quit out of that and started over and formatted another 10 disks
 without incident.   I had the protection set to [3] so it's possible
 that it was finding a real DOS error that was simply not noticed before.
 How do I tell?

                                                      ---Peter