16-bit Program under XP - woe, woe, woe is me...

[Darwin]

Hi all,

I'm trying to use a 16-bit program (3-D morphometrics visualizer called Morpheus) that I have run under WinXP Pro Sp-2 successfully in the past (August 2004) on the very notebook that I am writing on right now. It's always worked flawlessly but in the intervening years something has gone awry and I can no longer click anywhere on the main menu bar (File/Edit/View, etc.) without the program shutting down. The error message (I had to record the crash so that I could isolate the frame to read the message!) is pretty uninformative:

16-bit Program under XP - woe, woe, woe is me...

I've completely removed the original installation and have reinstalled the application. I've confirmed that it works on a different XP Pro machine and have spent some fruitless hours trying to determine if I am missing an essential dll. This may very well be the case, but I'm buggered if I can figure it out!

So, my friends, I turn to the donationcoder community in hope that someone has any insight!

Thanks,

Mike

PS Morpheus has a command line component that still works on my machine... even from within the GUI version.

[Lashiec]

I don't have much experience running 16-bit applications in Windows, but you could try to run the software under Dependency Walker. To do this, install the program (ZIP file, so it's quite clean), and select "Profile -> Start profiling", select with the executable of the program and let it run. You could also check all the boxes if you wish. At least, the software would determine if something is missing or not.

And, as always, you have Virtual PC

[Grorgy]

just a general thing, window blinds has an unfortunate habit of causing a bit of havoc with some programs so if you are running that then tell it to ignore morpheus

[Darwin]

Thanks for the suggestions. Lashiec, I'll give dependency walker a try, though the author states that it won't work on 16 bit programmes, but perhaps he means it won't run under 16 bit versions of windows? I have run Process Explorer, which shows the dlls in use by m-gui.exe but doesn't indicate whether or not any are missing!

Grorgy - I've had WindowBlinds installed in the past, but uninstalled it several months ago. I wonder if I need to do a thorough search for orphaned WB files? I'll do both of the above and report back.

Ta.

[Darwin]

Nope - Dependency Walker doesn't like 16-bit modules, sadly. Still, I'll take a run at the Virtual PC option - hadn't thought of it and missed it the first time I read Lashiec's post - cheers! Will also make good on my promise to look for orphaned WB files.

[Lashiec]

D'oh! I had the confidence that Dependency Walker could handle 16-bit software

So, you only have the Virtual PC option left... unless you didn't try the "Compatibility" tab in the executable "Properties" page (forgot about that).

[steeladept]

Darwin, I remember Service Pack 2 causing a LOT of issues, particularly with 16 bit apps.  It came out on 25 August of 2004.  Are you sure when you used it last that it was SP2, not SP1?  That could be your issue...

[Darwin]

Ha ha! I was looking at this issue too  - I last used Morpheus on August 8, 2004. I note, too, that the computer that I CAN run it on here is still on Sp-1. I'll have to keep looking for a solution...

[Grorgy]

you did visit his/her site and get the latest? the claim there is that it works on all current versions and the site was only updated the other day.  (Grorgy likes to clutch at straws  )

[Darwin]

Grorgy - yes, I updated to the latest build yesterday (though it turns out to be the same one that I had from early last week). As for Sp-2 vs. Sp-1, I was mistaken - the machine that I am able to run Morpheus on IS running Sp-2, fully patched. There are only two differences compared to my machine: mine is running the English version of XP Pro whereas the other machine is running the French version of XP Media Centre. I assume at this point that I have managed to remove something from my Windows installation or that there is a serious conflict somewhere. I can't do much about the Windows installation until I get home and have more or less run out of ideas about the conflict. I'm going to see if I can list the dependencies on the other machine using Process Explorer (tried yesterday but PE, running from my thumb drive, couldn't see the exe at all - I'm going to place both Morpheus and Process Explorer in the other machine's root directory and see if that makes a difference).

[Darwin]

Crap, pooh, derision, corruption... Shall I continue? No... Anyway, I finally managed to access a list of dll's called by Morpheus under WinXP Media Centre Sp-2 and WinXP Pro Sp-2 and there are differences, but all of the dll's NOT called by Morpheus under Pro are present on my computer. What do I do now?  More of the same, I guess...