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If we find any issues with the programs on CD we will try to post a solution here.
Please see also our updates page. Updates are free to purchasers. You will find your program's version by
click on Help menu/Help about.
We welcome any feedback from users as we would like to make our software run flawlessly on as many
computers as possible.
This problem will only be encountered if the Microsoft Help Workshop HCW.EXE has been installed. (It may be installed with MS Office or with some development tools). Use "Find" or "Search" on the Windows Start Button. Choose "Files or folders". Locate HCW.EXE. Click to open. Choose "File > Help Author" and remove the check mark.
Animals UK/Plants UK are not network aware and are currently only designed to run on the machines they are installed on, although they can be installed across a network by simply copying setup.exe from the CD to each machine and running it.
Animals UK/Plants UK are not guaranteed to run on lower spec machines but will generally do so with no more than the obvious drawbacks: less power means the program runs slower and less memory means you can have fewer plates open. You should close any unecessary Species Plates to avoid out of memory errors. If running with a 640x480 display you will need to close the system tray to prevent the bottom of forms being obscured. Interactives in versions except 1.xx of Animals UK may not operate fully if the version of Internet Explorer on your machine is earlier than 5.0. The latest version of Internet Explorer is available free of charge from Microsoft's website and is often on cover DVDs/CDs of computer magazines. (PC Answers usually has it)
Animals UK/Plants UK stated to run only on Windows 98, 2000 or XP have been tested to run on Vista with only minor problems:
The program uses web browsers and this may happen if a previous dial up connection to the Internet has not been closed properly. Simply select connect and then cancel on the next dialog box.
Sound may have been disabled if Windows Media Player version
6.0 or better was not detected on installation. Sound is a very minor part of
the exercises, providing suitable noises to mark right or wrong answers and
not having it detracts very little from the value of the exercises. If you would
still prefer to have it, check the points below.
If you believe your version of Media Player is 6 or better
but has not been correctly detected by Animals UK, or you subsequently install
a suitable version of Media Player, then allow sound to be enabled as follows:
Open the text format setup file Options.set in your AnimalsUK directory in Notepad. If you
accepted the defaults on setup, this will be Animals UK in the Program Files directory. At the
end of the file change:
X
[End]
to
Sound
[End]
And resave. If you then have problems with the Investigations freezing, reverse the above.
Note that the above is a safe procedure. If you make a mistake (even if you delete all the lines)
Animals UK will still run, albeit with default options.
Your next use of save options on the Options menu a will recreate a file in the proper format.
To check your version of Media Player, run it, select Help
from the menu and then Help About. Note that if you cannot find version information
on Help About it will be an early version.
You may download Media Player updates free of charge from Microsoft's
and some other websites. There is an option to do this from the help menu of
Media Player on later versions. It is also frequently available on PC magazine
cover CDs alone or as part of Internet Explorer.
Schools may prefer to disable sound so pupils cannot turn it on from the menu. Simply reverse the procedure in the previous section by changing sound to X (or any word but sound!).
Running more than one copy on a machine has been disabled as there is no obvious purpose and because in versions 1.xx of Animals UK the assistant of both copies (or all copies if more than two) would appear on the top copy. If you attempt to do so a message box will appear. If you really need to run more than another copy, simply make a copy of AnimalsUK.exe, rename the AnimalsUK part (e.g. to AnimalsUK2.exe) and double click on that. In version 1.xx of Animals UK you should turn off the Assistant (Menu, Options, hide assistant) to avoid confusion.
With an 800x600 display or better, this should only happen if you use a tray of double height or more. The system tray (at bottom of the screen) may be resized by dragging down the top. Options may also be changed by right click to prevent it appearing over the top of programs.
If a message box is shown containing the words "See help file under trouble shooting", this denotes an anticipated problem due to a file that has gone missing from or become corrupted in the Animals UK directory. The problem will normally be rectified by reinstalling Animals UK. In the case of a corrupt file it may be necessary to uninstall the program first. Note that, as far as possible, the program has been made to continue running if you cancel the message box.
Grouping has some significant limitations when a species can match two or more buttons. If, for example, a butterfly flies in April and August, it is not really possible to sort it sensibly compared to one only flying in June. This is explained in more detail in the help file. In cases where species match only one button, the majority, grouping is a useful function.
The book button should open the information file at the specific point that deals with the topic. On old versions of Windows 98/Explorer it may open the file at the top. You may use the right hand scroll bar to locate the appropriate heading. The latest version of Internet Explorer is available free of charge from Microsoft's website and is often on cover DVDs/CDs of computer magazines. (PC Answers usually has it)
You can still print by right clicking on the page and using the print option presented. Printing or page setup from the interactive buttons uses Mead Corporation's ScriptX add-in and if you have Vista or a later version of XP or have otherwise installed a later version of Internet Explorer you will need an update, available from our updates page. Vista users with pre-Vista versions of the programs, see also question 4.
This can happen after the scroll button is used. Visit our updates page for a free update to latest spec.
The species plates are designed for a width/height ratio of 1.33, eg 800x600, 1024x768, 1152x864, although appearance should be quite acceptable with any reasonably similar screen ratio. With more unusual ratios some distortion may be apparent. The interactives and information pages in Plants UK and Animals UK from version 2 generally resize to any ratio but visit our updates page for minor improvements in this.
This is a bug in the executable. When the print dialog is opened on the species plate and the print plate option is selected, the print button is hidden. If you select print setup and then cancel, the print button will be revealed.
We only state they will run in Internet Explorer, which is the only browser relevant to in-program interactives. The scripts in Firefox and other browsers adhere more rigidly to standard and providing interactives to work with even the main ones requires much additional code to implement things in different ways. Versions of all the main interactives are being created to also run in Firefox and are being made available for free on this website, see our interactives page.
This is a problem affecting all programs written in VB6 that has only been seen on one machine running Vista. Queries on technical boards have failed to find anyone else with the problem. The root cause is unknown but in the unlikely event you encounter the problem it may be fixed temporarily by reducing screen resolution and restoring it although the problem will return when you next restart your PC. Fortunately, this is only a cosmetic glitch as the scrollbar is still useable.
The programs have not been tested and are not guaranteed to run on lower spec machines or on other operating systems. These programs use Microsoft's .NET Framework which should instal and run on Windows 98 that has all the latest updates but as Microsoft no longer support Windows 98 you may find that any updates you need are no longer readily available. The .NET framework is somewhat heavy on disc space but provided you have enough to instal them and still provide necessary virtual memory, the programs should run on slower machines; the main drawback will be the delay in creating the thumbnails. The programs work with screen resolutions down to 800x600 and less memory should not be a problem within reason.
In IE8 Microsoft have been more rigid and not allowed some jscript references that worked fine before. You can cure this problem by downloading the updates from our updates page.
