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| Troubleshooting Page
(including Frequently Asked Questions and Helpdesk Contact Information) |
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Frequently Asked Questions for PC Users:
Question 1: On what PCs will Clear Skies! run?
Answer: This CD-ROM has been optimized to run on Pentium (100
MHz or greater, 16Mb+) machines running Win 95/98/NT with CDROM drives.
In general terms, PCs which will play recently-released computer games
are recommended. Older PCs such as fast 486 machines running Win 95 may
run the basic CD-ROM material quite well, but some of the extra custom
simulations (movies) may run poorly on older machines.
Question 2: Why does the install 'automatically' copy files? I want
to specify where things are installed!'
Answer: Unfortunately, due to limitations of the Powerpoint
Viewer, the files installed by the CD have to be installed in the same
place on each machine. Essentially, Powerpoint viewer will not link to
a file unless it has an absolute address, therefore we need to have all
links from Powerpoint presentations pointing to a pre-determined location
- hence the placement of these files on C: drive. We realise that this
may be annoy some, but they are very small (less than 150Kb), and this
was the most reliable and hassle-free way to work around these restrictions.
If you really cannot have these files on your C: drive, delete them - all
links from Powerpoint presestations will be broken, but you can easily
find the files on the CD yourself.
Question 3: I click on icons or links to start Clear
Skies! but it fails to load.
Solution 1 Ensure that the correct CD-ROM is in the drive.
Solution 2 Ensure that you have the PowerPoint viewer installed
and redo the first stage of the installation of the CD, as this sets it
up to be your default viewer.
Solution 3 Manually view the ppt files on the CDROM in the Content
directory. To load a file into the PowerPoint Viewer, double click on it.
Question 4: 'Clicking on a link in a PowerPoint
Presentation brings up the message "Cannot open the specified file".
Solution 1 Ensure that the EGC, ESMW and ESS directories have
been created on your C: drive. You may need to click the Reinstall Content
button in the Setup menu.
Solution 2 Manually find the file (Shown in brackets ie. /egcmovs/h13)
on the cd in the MOVIES directory and load it into Netscape.
Question 5: 'Clicking on a link in a PowerPoint
Presentation brings up Netscape but it says it cannot locate the movie
file.'
Solution 1 Ensure you have the correct CD in the drive
Solution 2 Re-run the Setup from the CD and reinstall the content.
Solution 3 Manually find the file (Shown in brackets ie. /egcmovs/h13)
on the cd in the MOVIES directory and load it into Netscape.
Question 6: 'When clicking on a link in the presentation, Netscape
opens but is empty or an error is displayed.'
Solution 1 Ensure that the correct CD-ROM is in the drive.
Solution 2 If you did not install the version of Netscape Navigator
(or Communicator) supplied on the CD you may need to obtain the Macromedia
Shockwave Flash plugin. This plugin along with support is available from
http://www.macromedia.com/support/shockwave/installation/
Solution 3 From the Edit menu select Preferences. Then from
the bottom left click the word Advanced. Make sure that there is a tick
in the box next to 'Enable JavaScript'.
Question 7: 'When I click the icon on the Desktop
or in the Start menu it looks for the shortcut but can't find it.'
Solution 1 Make sure the correct CD is in the drive.
Solution 2 Your CD-ROM drive may have changed letters (for example
it may now be E: instead of D:. Check this by clicking My Computer from
your desktop). In this case insert the CD and run Setup.exe. Reinstall
the content. It is not necessary to reinstall Navigator or the PowerPoint
Viewer.
Question 8: 'When I click on a link to a PowerPoint
presentation (Course Content) Microsoft PowerPoint loads instead of the
PowerPoint Viewer or does not load at all.'
Solution 1 If you have not installed the PowerPoint Viewer load
the setup program on the CD and reinstall the powerpoint viewer. At the
end of the install select No to restarting your computer.
Solution 2 If you have already installed the PowerPoint Viewer,
load Netscape Navigator. Under the edit menu, select preferences. Under
the Navigator menu on the left select Applications. Scroll down and select
Microsoft PowerPoint Show. Click Edit and then click Browse. Locate the
PowerPoint Viewer (usually in c:\Program Files\PowerPoint Viewer\ppview32.exe)
and click open. Now repeat the procedure given above (from Scroll down)
for the entry PPVIEW32 which has the PPT extension.
Question 9: 'How do I make Netscape my default browser?'
Answer: Each time you open Netscape you should be presented
with a dialog box that reads "Navigator is no longer registered to handle
Internet Shortcuts. Would you like to register Navigator as your default
browser?" Click Yes.
Question 10: 'I no longer want Netscape as my default browser. How
do I make Internet Explorer my default browser again'
Solution 1: Run Internet Explorer. When it asks you if you want
to make it your default browser, click Yes.
Solution 2: If you cannot run Internet Explorer, go into the
Control Panel and double-click on 'Internet Options'. Go to the 'Programs'
tab, and hit the 'Reset Web Settings'... button. Also, make sure that the
'Internet Explorer should check to see whether it is the default browser'
checkbox is selected.
Question 11: 'I use an earlier version of Communicator for news and
mail, so I installed only the Navigator program from the CD. Now, I've
lost all of my bookmarks, address book, e-mail, etc.'
Answer: Install Communicator 4.5 from the CD. Due to the way
in which Navigator and Communicator are written, they can not be installed
at the same time - this means that when you installed Navigator, it removed
your earlier version of Communicator. Installing the latest Communicator
will restore your mailer, newsreader, etc., and will restore your
previous settings, so all of your bookmarks, address book entries and mail
will be restored.
Question 12: Can I run Clear Skies under Windows 3.x?
Answer: Users running Windows 3.x (e.g. 3.1, 3.11 etc)
are likely to find that the PowerPoint presentations will run slowly as
they may be rather resource intensive for the computers concerned. PowerPoint
Viewer for Windows 3.x is located in CDROM:\ppview\ppview16.exe.
Warning: You will not be able to view movies under Windows 3.x.
Question 13: How do I uninstall Clear Skies?
Answer: Only a small amount of data has been loaded onto
your machine during the Clear Skies! installation. Simply delete the following
directories, c:\esmw, c:\ess, c:\egc. You can also delete the icons from
your desktop or start menu (Click on the Start button, select Settings.
Taskbar, start menu programs)
To uninstall Netscape or PowerPoint Viewer select Add/Remove programs
from the Control Panel (Under the Windows Start Menu, Settings). If the
uninstall procedure asks if you want to delete shared libraries, select
'No'.
Question 14: I have installed Netscape from the CD-ROM but
cannot access any Internet content with it.
Answer: Attempt to access a few sites and see if the problem
is specific to a single site (it may be temporarily off-line) or to the
whole Internet. If the problem is affecting access to the entire Internet
consult your ISP's documentation, taking special note of proxy setup.
Question 15: Can I use my copy of Internet Explorer to view Clear
Skies! if I choose not to install Netscape?
Answer: Recent versions of Internet Explorer should play the
Activities in Clear Skies! well, as long as you install the PowerPoint
Viewer (supplied on the CD-ROM). You may not be able to view the
movies correctly, however.
Help Desk Contact Information for PC Users:
If after you are still having problems installing the Clear Skies!
CD-ROM after have carefully followed the Installation Instructions, plus
read the answers to the Frequently Asked Questions above, follow
this link to contact our Helpdesk.
Question 12: 'On what Macintosh computers will Clear Skies!
run?'
Answer: The CD-ROM can be viewed on Macintosh PowerMac machines
capable of running both Netscape Communicator and the PowerPoint 98 viewer.
(Both are supplied on the CD-ROM.)
The system requirements to run the PowerPoint 98 viewer are available
at http://agent.microsoft.com/macoffice/productinfo/98dl/pptvdl.htm
. The viewer can be extracted using Aladdin System's StuffIt Expander (supplied
as part of Netscape Communicator on the CD-ROM, or
downloadable from http://www.aladdinsys.com/expander/
).
Question 13: 'Can I run Clear Skies under older operating systems?'
Answer: Users running versions of the Mac operating system
prior to 7.5 cannot run the PowerPoint presentations but should be able
to view the movies and the .htm files.
Users of early versions of 7.5.x are likely to find that the PowerPoint
presentations will run slowly as they may be rather resource intensive
for the computers concerned.
In order to view the movies well, you are advised to install the most
recent copy of Quicktime that is compatible with your machine and operating
system. You can download Quicktime at no charge from http://www.apple.com/quicktime.
If you do not wish to use the entire Netscape Communicator suite, because
of RAM or hard drive constraints, you may download Netscape Navigator 4.08
from http://home.netscape.com.
Question 14: 'I click on icons or aliases to start Clear
Skies! but nothing happens.'
Solution 1 Ensure that the correct CD-ROM is in the drive.
Solution 2 Ensure that you have the PowerPoint viewer installed.
Solution 3 Try setting up the MIME type for PowerPoint files
in Netscape (see the 'readme.mac' file on the CD).
Solution 4 Find the ppt files on the CDROM in the Content folder.
To open a file in the PowerPoint Viewer, double click on it.
Solution 5 Drag the ppt file you want to view onto the PowerPoint
Viewer, or onto an alias of it.
Question 15: 'When I try to start Clear Skies! presentations,
I get an error message about not having enough RAM.'
Solution 1 The PowerPoint Viewer uses a lot of RAM on a Macintosh
and will not run, or will run badly, if there is not enough RAM available.
Open the Applications menu on the top right hand corner of your screen,
then select and quit one by one any applications that you have open but
are not using until only the Finder, the PowerPoint Viewer and Netscape
remain open.
Solution 2 There may not be enough RAM allocated to the PowerPoint
Viewer. First, find out how much RAM you have to spare. Quit all applications
except for the Finder and then choose About This Macintosh from the Apple
menu. There you will see how much RAM you have, and the size of the largest
unused block: make a note of it, as that is your spare RAM.
Find the PowerPoint viewer itself (not a folder or alias) and single-click
on it. Choose Get Info from the File menu, and then increase the Preferred
Memory size until it is up to 48 MB, if you have that much spare RAM.
Example: a machine running 64 MB RAM may have 34 MB free (when the
operating system is using 30 MB). So you could allocate 34 MB to the PowerPoint
Viewer.
WARNING: If you allocate too much of your unused RAM to the PowerPoint
Viewer you will not be able to run any other programs while the Viewer
is open.
Question 16: 'When I view PowerPoint presentations, they run very
slowly.'
Answer: Unfortunately, the PowerPoint viewer is a large and
slow program, and hence there is little that can be done to speed up presentations.
One thing that can help to speed up presentations is to copy the files
from the CD to your hard drive before viewing them.
Question 17: 'The PowerPoint presentations open in PowerPoint itself
and so don't run properly. Why?'
Answer: Your Macintosh probably has a version of Microsoft Office
installed, and this includes the PowerPoint program itself. when you double-click
on a presentation, the program opens instead of the Viewer. There are two
ways to prevent this from happening:
Solution 1: Set the MIME type in Netscape for PowerPoint files
to use the viewer instead of the full program.Instructions on how to do
this can be found in the 'readme.mac' file on the CD.
Solution 2: Do not double-click on the presentation to open
it. Instead, make sure that you drag the presentation you want to view
onto the PowerPoint Viewer icon (or an alias of it).
Question 18: 'Clicking on a link to a movie in
a PowerPoint Presentation does nothing.'.
Solution 1 Unfortunately, the links do not work on Macintoshes.
Note the name of the file, then find the file (shown in brackets i.e. /egcmovs/h13)
on the CD in the MOVIES folder and drag it onto Netscape, onto a Netscape
window or onto the icon of a movie viewer (such as Quicktime Player, Movie
Player, Play It Cool).
Question 19: 'Clicking on a link to an internet
URL in a PowerPoint Presentation does nothing.'
Solution The links do not work on Macintoshes. Note the URL,
then type it into the Location box in Netscape and press Enter or
Return.
Question 20: 'When I'm viewing a .htm page and
I click on a link to a PowerPoint presentation in the Index of Contents,
the presentation does not open; in fact the PowerPoint Viewer does not
load at all.'
Answer: First, try setting up the MIME type in Netscape for
PowerPoint files (see the 'readme.mac' file on the CD). If this does not
work, note name of the file, then find the file on the CD in the CONTENT
folder and double-click on it or drag it onto the PowerPoint viewer.
Question 21: 'How do I uninstall Clear Skies?'
Answer: Unless you have specifically chosen to move any
files to your hard drive they will not reside there (except as aliases
in the Recent Documents folder in the Apple Menu).
To uninstall Netscape or PowerPoint Viewer, use the Find ... function
in the File menu or the Apple menu to find the relevant folder, and then
drag the folder to the trash.
Netscape will most probably have a folder in the Preferences folder,
and this may be trashed as well if you are not an internet user.
Question 22: 'I have installed Netscape from the CD-ROM but
cannot access any Internet content with it.'
Solution 1 You do not have to be online to use Netscape to view
the Clear Skies! CD, so it is likely that you were not online when you
clicked on the link. Make sure that you have an internet account with an
ISP, that your modem is plugged in and working, and that you are logged
on (e.g. via Remote Access, PPP or FreePPP as relevant to your operating
system).
Solution 2 Attempt to access a few sites and see if the problem
is specific to a single site (it may be temporarily off-line) or to the
whole Internet. If the problem is affecting access to the entire Internet
consult your ISP's documentation, taking special note of the proxy setup.
Question 23: 'Can I use my copy of Internet Explorer to view Clear
Skies! if I choose not to install Netscape?'
Answer: Recent versions of Internet Explorer should play the
Activities in Clear Skies! well, as long as you install the PowerPoint
Viewer (supplied on the CD-ROM). You may not be able to view the
movies correctly, however.
Help Desk Contact Information for Mac users:
If after you are still having problems running the Clear Skies!
CD-ROM after have carefully followed the Installation Instructions, plus
read the answers to the Frequently Asked Questions above, follow
this link to contact our Helpdesk.