Jake's Tech Talk Error Codes

This is the domain of the infamous Blue Screen of Death, as it is known in the trade. In most cases, you are given only the choice to end the offending application. Unfortunately, this also usually means you have to reboot the computer to get everything running again. This is how temporary files are left intact and lost clusters are born. In other words, review your notes from the first session, and go through the cleanup steps again.

There is hope, however. If you write down the error message, you can use that information to search the software author's website. For example, WordPerfect8 error messages are very well documented on a database at the Corel homepage:

http://www.corel.com/products/wordperfect/cwp8/support.htm 

An excellent site for information about Pegasus Mail is at:

http://home.kabelfoon.nl/~jaabogae/han/han_lkfr.htm 

(Don't worry - the text is in English, even though the site is based in Holland.)

In many cases, some of the most intimidating messages are generated by the simplest problems. One recent case was a WordPerfect that refused to run. A quick check of Corel's database revealed that the problem was caused by an incorrect system clock. WordPerfect 6.1 refused to run with the date and time set for midnight, January 1, 1980, on a Windows 3 system. By adding a line to prompt the user for the proper date and time on bootup, this problem was eliminated.

Sometimes a program simply locks up, or more accurately, stops responding. For this, the first step is to try the Close Program window. Press Ctrl - Alt- Del, all together, ONCE. Look over the list of running programs for the application that has locked up, highlight it, and click on End Task. This will often restore the rest of the system to running order, allowing you to once again go in and remove the temp files.

One final website that I've found useful:

http://www.windowstrouble.com 

This one is an independent site about the Windows operating system, and how to deal with its bugs.

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