Nextstart crashing

from WinCustomize Forums
Im new to all this window blinds stuff, but have got on well with it apart from nextstart keeps crashing, anymore than 3 windows open and it clears my desktop, all task icons and taskbar, leaving me with just the startbutton, sometimes leaves the desktop and takes away the start button. Me? Win 98se 30gb 733mhz pent3. Nextstart preferences ignore sound off commands also. If I can get this to run properly I will purchase, but if not, the its just too much time wasting. Thanks for any advice.
2,246 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
That's weird... Is there an error message? Can you reproduce it all the time? If not, and since you are running under Win98, have you kept an eye on system resources? If yes, is there a common pattern (like Pagemaker being open, for instance)? Does it happen when you do something?

Regarding NextSTART ignoring your Sound off commands in Preferences: where are you setting this? To globally prevent sounds, you must disable the 'Sounds' option in NextSTART's Global Preferences tab.

Jorge Coelho
NextSTART 2.80 - A user interface you can actually use!
http://www.winstep.net - Winstep Software Technologies
IRC Chat: #winstep on AustNet
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Thanks for your help jorge. Yes it does crash just as the system resources suddenly diminish, which never happened before installing nextstart.
No error messages come up.
Yesit does crash when I 'do things'on my pc, but no specific task. I think its somehow linked to system resources being low. Im about to upgrade to 256 Ram, will this help? (at 128ram at the moment)
As for the sound, yep been there, done that Globally! Doesnt work. Makes it a nusiance when listening to music while you work.

Tigermoon
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
> Yes it does crash just as the system resources suddenly diminish, which never happened before installing nextstart.

Don't jump to conclusions, we never saw nor got reports of sudden resource drops being caused by NextSTART (I've seen this happen with another program in WinME, though, and no, NextSTART was not running at the time ).

I think something else is causing the sudden resource drops, and with NextSTART loaded on top of all the programs you usually use, you end up going all the way to the bottom instead of just scratching the surface - which causes your machine to crash. So it's not really NextSTART's fault, but of whatever is causing your resources to drop suddenly.

The only way to find the real culprit is by trial and error, and it will take patience. Fire up Resource Monitor and run without some of your usual programs for a while, one at a time, until you have no more resource drops. At this point you will have identified the source of the problem. If you decide to ignore the issue, however, you will be hit by it again sooner or later.

> Im about to upgrade to 256 Ram, will this help?

No, it won't, because you are running under Win9x - it has a fixed 64 KB limit on User and GDI resources. The best solution to your problem (and the end to crashes, system instability, worrying about how many programs you are running at the same time and loss of hair) is to upgrade to Win2000 or XP, which are rock solid operating systems with a 2 GB limit on system resources (you would run out of RAM long before you ever ran out of resources!).

> As for the sound, yep been there, done that Globally! Doesnt work. Makes it a nusiance when listening to music while you work.

All NextSTART sounds go through the same unique routine, which first checks to see if sounds are disabled globally or not. If they are, then the sound is not played. Just to be on the safe side, I checked this feature again, and it _is_ working. The option I am talking about is the one in the Misc.Options section of NextSTART's Global Preferences tab.

What version of NextSTART are your running (you can check this out in the About tab of NextSTART Preferences)? What sounds do you hear and when? If you have it, try applying the Windows2000 theme. Do you still hear sounds?

Jorge Coelho
NextSTART 2.80 - A user interface you can actually use!
http://www.winstep.net - Winstep Software Technologies
IRC Chat: #winstep on AustNet
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I thought you might also like to check the following URL, it has a lot of interesting and useful information regarding system resources:

http://www.aumha.org/a/resource.htm

Jorge Coelho
NextSTART 2.80 - A user interface you can actually use!
http://www.winstep.net - Winstep Software Technologies
IRC Chat: #winstep on AustNet
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Well, I actually uninstalled nextstart in the end, as I needed to use other programs more urgently. I have now upgraded to 512 anyway.

Thanks for the link to the website, very interesting plus Ive wanted to find a site with this kind of info on for ages.

I would love to have WinXP, but cant afford it yet Maybe one day!

I reckon you are right about gdi as that is always running in 'the red'.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Tigermoon - hope this hasn't put you off using Nextstart, not when basically it is the OS at fault and you should be blaming big bad Bill instead.

If you cannot afford XP then maybe a better bet, to get away from the wonderful world of windoze9x, is seeing if you can get hold of a OEM copy of Windows 2000. With the release of XP OEM copys of Win2K should be very much cheaper. Just a suggestion - and all that memory you just stuck in can get used, which as you just learned isn't going to be in win9x.