Technical Support for Pinochle 3.6

Check the README.TXT file in your Pinochle installed directory for additional information.

Double-Deck Pinochle has been tested as extensively as is practical, but the wide variety of available hardware and software means that some potential conflicts may exist. Following are some tips that some users may find helpful.

Note: Before changing any system setup, deleting files, etc., I strongly recommend that you have a good backup of your system. Although these instructions are believed to be accurate, I cannot vouch for every system and every installation.

A. Font problems

1. Fonts are not legible inside Double-Deck Pinochle

This may be caused by apparently corrupted font files installed in your Windows system (why they may be corrupted is unknown). You may correct this with the following procedure.

First, make sure you have a decent backup. Then, open the Windows Control Panel and double-click on the Fonts control. All installed fonts will be shown. Check each font by double-clicking on it. If the installed font looks OK in the displayed sample, then close it and move on to the next font. Otherwise, delete the font (do not delete System fonts -- these may require re-installation of Windows). When a corrupted font is deleted, programs will use a substitute font for screen display. When finished, close the Control Panels and re-start Windows.

2. Fonts overlap some of the dialog items and other screen elements

This occurs when you are using the Windows 95 Large Fonts option. It should not greatly interfere with Pinochle. If you have Large Fonts selected, you will probably wish to keep them. I plan for the next release of Pinochle to correct this situation.

However, if you wish, you may turn off the Large Fonts as follows: Right-click on your desktop background and choose "Properties." Click on the Settings tab. Under "Font Size" select "Small Fonts" and click OK. Note that you may have to reboot your computer if you do this.

3. I wish to increase the display size of the cards and other parts of the program.

Pinochle uses whatever resolution your display card is set to use. See the FAQ for information on a Microsoft utility to change resolutions on-the-fly without rebooting. This will allow you to change the size quickly when you run Pinochle.

B. Install will not run

You must make sure that ALL other programs are closed before running INSTALL.EXE. Do not simply minimize the programs; choose them and then do File | Exit to terminate all other programs. Close any system monitors,networking utilities, etc. Then run INSTALL.EXE

C. General Protection Fault

If you get a "General Protection" error when running Pinochle, then you should check your .DLL files. The .DLL and .VBX files should be moved to your \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory and should not be present *anywhere* else on your computer.

This means that the DLL files should *not* be present in the subdirectory that holds Pinochle. If you ran the INSTALL.EXE file as listed above, then these files should have been placed in their proper locations.

You should make sure that the following files are present in your \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory:

(See the "Manual Installation" section of README.TXT for more information.)

Then check out your PATH by giving the PATH command at a DOS prompt. Check each of the directories specified in the Path list, and make sure that none of the DLL's listed above are present in any of those directories. If any of them *are* present, then check their file date against the dates of the files in the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory, and retain the latest copy in the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory.

The following DOS commands may be useful when performing these tasks:

PATH -- to list the DOS search path
DIR *.DLL -- to list the DLL files in a directory
CD \ -- to change to the root subdirectory
DIR *.DLL /S -- to list DLL's in ALL subdirectories, after CD \
DIR *.DLL /S > PRN -- to print the above list on your printer
MOVE CTL3DV2.DLL \WINDOWS\SYSTEM
-- copies CTL3DV2.DLL to \WINDOWS\SYSTEM and deletes
it from the current location

If all of the DLL's check out OK, then you should consult the following troubleshooting tips.

D. Strange Video

Note that some video drivers cause problems with a variety of programs. If Pinochle does not run at all, or if it gives a "General Protection Fault" then you should try using a different video driver, or update your video drivers from your manufacturer or by downloading from an online service. To determine whether the problem is with video or with another aspect of your system or with Pinochle, you may wish to try using the generic VGA or SVGA drivers from Microsoft by running SETUP from the Windows 3.1 Main program group (in Windows 95, right click on the icon for "My Computer" and select PROPERTIES | DEVICE MANAGER | MONITOR).

E. Out of System Resources

This occurs for some users running Pinochle 2.1 and 3.0 with Windows 3.1, but does not appear to occur with Windows 95. At this time, it appears that using Pinochle 3.6 may solve this problem (as should upgrading to Windows 95).

F. Miscellaneous

If you have problems that are not resolved by changing video drivers, then also try running Pinochle without any other programs running in Windows. You could have a shortage of Windows resources (memory, virtual disk space, file handles, etc.)

Note that your DOS path specified in AUTOEXEC.BAT should contain the path for your Windows system. If not, Pinochle might have difficulty finding its system components.

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