INFO: Troubleshooting Visual C++ Setup Problems Under Windows 95

1. Determine which hardware device or device driver is causing the problem. To isolate the culprit, first look in the Device Manager. To find the Device Manager, point to the My Computer icon on your desktop, and click the right mouse button. Click Properties on the menu, and then select the Device Manager Tab. Be sure the View Devices by Type option is selected. This displays a tree control of the various hardware devices you have. Opening a given device on the tree control (by double-clicking it or by selecting it and clicking the the Properties button) shows the property sheet for the driver currently managing the device.
2. Open each device's property sheet. For each driver, check the device status message; you should see "Device is functioning properly." If the property sheet has a Driver tab, click it, and note the name of the driver file. If there is no Driver tab, the device driver is a standard driver, which is loaded internally by Windows 95. If you find a device driver that is malfunctioning and has a driver file, remove this driver and try again. If you find a standard device driver (no Driver tab on the property sheet) that is malfunctioning, check with the device's manufacturer to be sure there no third-party driver is required. Take careful note of whether or not your hard disk or CD-ROM uses third-party driver files, and what those file names are.
3. Start Windows 95 in a safe mode - that is with only those third-party drivers that are absolutely required for the computer to run and install Visual C++.
   
   
   1. Shut down your computer, and then restart it.
   2. When the screen says "Starting Windows 95 ..." press the F8 key to display the Windows 95 start-up menu.
   3. Select Safe Mode or Safe Mode With Network Support. This will boot Windows 95 into plain VGA mode, with no third-party drivers loaded. If you are installing from a local CD-ROM drive to a local hard-disk drive, select Plain Safe Mode, even if you are on a network.
      
      
      • If your problem is an unsuccessful installation, re-do the installation at this point. If this installation is successful, there is a good chance you can restart in standard configuration and build a sample successfully. If standard configuration builds fail, restart in safe mode and see if you can build a program. If you can build in safe mode, proceed to step 4 as though your original problem was a successful installation, but you cannot build programs.
      • If your problem is a successful installation, but you can't build programs, try building a sample under safe mode. If you can build the sample, then your task in step 4 will be to re-add drivers one at a time until you find the one that breaks the build process. Once discovered, you can contact the author to see if there are updates, or you can disable that driver when doing Visual C++ builds.
      • If your CD-ROM or hard-disk drive was previously using a third- party driver, there is a good chance you will not be able to install in safe mode due to an inability to access either your CD-ROM or hard-disk drive. If that is the case, proceed to step #4 for step-by-step clean boot instructions to load only the hard- disk driver or CD-ROM driver file and no others.
4. Arriving at this step probably means one of two things. You have installed and can build in safe mode, but cannot build in your regular configuration, or you could not access your hard-disk drive or CD-ROM in safe mode. In this step, you will clean boot again, but with step-by- step confirmation for each driver being loaded.
   
   
   1. Rename your System.ini file to something else, such as System.org (avoid .bak as a suffix). Second, copy (do not rename) System.cb to System.ini. The System.cb file is the "clean" System.ini that safe mode uses to boot your computer.
      
      NOTE: If you find that your mouse is not working when you boot using system.cb, adding the following may correct the problem:

               [boot]
               drivers=mmsystem.dll
               mouse.drv=mouse.drv
       
               [enh386]
               mouse=*vmouse
          

   2. Shut down your computer, and then restart it. When the screen says "Starting Windows95 ...," press the F8 key for the windows 95 start-up menu.
   3. Select Step-by-Step Confirmation, then follow these steps:
      
      
      1. Answer Y to process the system registry.
      2. Answer Y to create a start-up log file. The log file can be helpful in diagnosing problems, such as VxD's that can't load.
      3. Answer Y to process your start-up device drivers (Config.sys). You will not be asked this question if Config.sys is not found.
      4. Answer Y or N to each driver as appropriate (answer Y to Himem.sys, Emm386.sys, Ifshlp.sys).
      5. Answer Y to process Autoexec.bat, or Y to load the Windows graphical user interface. You will be asked the first question if Autoexec.bat is not found, and the second question if it is.
      6. Answer Y to load all Windows Drivers. These are the internal Windows system drivers and are required.
   If you are at this step (step 4) because of an inability to access your CD-ROM or your Hard-disk drive in safe mode, attempt to complete the installation if it is not already complete, and build a program. If you still cannot build or install, then the conflict is probably with the very driver you need to access your hard-disk or CD-ROM drive. Note the name of the driver file involved, the date and time of the file, and the size in bytes. You may also be able to get a revision number by clicking the right button when the file is selected in the Windows Explorer and selecting Properties. With this information, contact your hardware vendor to see if they have an update or a patch you can acquire.
   
   A common symptom of CD-ROM or hard-disk drive drivers conflicting or failing is files becoming corrupt during what appears to be a successful installation of Visual C++. To verify the integrity of the files copied from the CD-ROM to the Hard-disk drive, use FC.exe; for information on how to do this, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   94653 Using FC.EXE to Verify CD-ROM File System Drivers

   NOTE: For Visual C++ 2.x, there are two files, Msvcshl.dll and Spyxx.exe, in the Bin subdirectory that Fc.exe will report as different. These two files are modified as part of the installation process, and are therefore expected to be different. For Visual C++ 4.0, there are three files that are different: Msdev.exe, Msvccpp.pkg and Spyxx.exe. If any other files are found to differ, simply copying them from the CD-ROM drive may fix the problem.
   
   If setup is still failing, the CD-ROM driver is the one that is conflicting, and it is impossible to download a new CD-ROM device driver, there is a last resort that sometimes works. Boot to a plain MS- DOS mode. Copy the entire Msvc20 directory to a temporary directory on the computer's hard drive by using XCOPY. Then install from the temporary directory. Run "setup.exe /f" from the CD-ROM afterwards to set the Help file paths and other paths correctly. Finally, delete the temporary directory. Of course this "solution" requires that the computer have plenty of extra disk space available.
   
   If you are at step 4 because you can build in safe mode, but not in standard mode, begin adding the drivers you weren't loading, one by one, until the process breaks. If all drivers get loaded and the program still builds, your video driver may be at fault, or it may be a combination of two or more drivers being loaded simultaneously (and conflicting with each other) that is causing the problem. Once the culprit is found, again note the date and time, size in bytes, and possibly the revision number of the driver. Then contact the driver's manufacturer for an update or patch.

Creating a Hardware Profile

1. Click My Computer using the right mouse button. Click the Hardware Profile tab, highlight Original Profile in the list box, and click the Copy Button, naming the new profile as you wish. This hardware profile is now an exact copy of your original or default configuration.
2. Click the Device Manager tab, and open up the property sheet for each device driver. Note the section called Device Usage. Clear the check box next to your new profile for each device driver you don't want to load when booting under your new profile.