224 - Installation Help

NewDeal Technical Support Document 224

INSTALLATION HELP

Information and help about installing NewDeal software

Before You Install

Back up all important files on your system.

The installation process will not proceed normally if you do not have enough free disk space on your hard drive. You will need at least 10 Megabytes of free disk space for the program and even more disk space for your documents, plus 2 Megabytes of free space for temporary files while NewDeal is running.

To find out how much disk space you have, enter

dir

at any DOS prompt. Look on the last line to see how many bytes you have free. If you are low on disk space, you must delete files or programs to make more room.

Installing your NewDeal software

To install NewDeal software, insert disk #1 into the proper drive and enter:

a:install(or b:install if your disk is in the b: drive)

then follow the directions on screen.

If Something Goes Wrong During Installation

Low on Memory (RAM)

If you have less than 520K of free conventional memory, the Install program will tell you that you need to disable some TSRs and try again. TSRs are programs that load into memory in your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files. Each one takes up memory. You can temporarily disable them to give NewDeal enough memory to install.

To disable the TSRs, you can use the NewDeal Text File Editor, the Geoworks Notepad, the Windows Notepad, the MS-DOS Edit or Edlin command, the DR-DOS Editor, or NewHelp to edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS files. Before you change them, however, make a bootable floppy disk (also called a system disk) and copy your original CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT to the floppy so you can start your computer from this floppy in case of problems. If you aren't familiar with your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files, see technical support document 206 (CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT) or study your DOS manual or a DOS primer.

To give your NewDeal software enough memory to install, type

REM

and a space at the beginning of the line that loads each TSR you can do without to temporarily disable it. For example, if you have the line

DEVICE = C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS

change it to read:

REM DEVICE = C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS

If you are using disk compression, make sure you do NOT disable any line that refers to your disk compression software. If you see lines that refer to HIMEM.SYS or DOS=HIGH, don't disable those lines either. Save the revised AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files and reboot your computer, then try to install your NewDeal software.

If you own a 386 or 486 computer and have at least 2 MB of RAM, you should consider using an Expanded Memory Manager to load some of your TSRs and device drivers into upper memory. See your DOS manual or consult a computer software dealer for more information on expanded memory managers.

"Put proper disk in drive C:"

If you get the message "Put proper disk in drive C:" during installation, and you are using DR-DOS 6, you may be using an old release of DR-DOS 6.0. Obtain and install the May 1992 Business Update for DR-DOS 6.0, or consider upgrading to a newer version of DOS. Caldera has taken over and upgraded DR-DOS and distributes the newest version for download from their web site.

Check the Hard Drive

Installation problems are often the result of errors on the hard drive. To check the integrity of your hard drive, go to a DOS prompt and enter:

chkdsk /f

If you are asked to "Convert lost chains to files?" enterY for Yes. This is an indication that errors were found on the drive and an attempt was made to fix them. You should try to install your NewDeal software again. If CHKDSK does not find errors, this doesn't necessarily mean that the hard disk is error-free. You may want to run a more sophisticated disk checking utility, such as Norton's DiskDoctor, PC Tool's DiskFix, or Microsoft's ScanDisk. It is a good idea to run such a disk checking utility periodically to keep your hard drive in good working order.

Check the Floppy Disk

If you are having trouble with a particular floppy disk, you can use the same procedure you used to check the hard drive. Put the disk in the appropriate drive and enter:

chkdsk A:
(or chkdsk B: if your diskette is in the B: drive)

or, even better, use your disk scanning utility. If the diskettes contain errors, try using the DOS command DISKCOPY to make full copies of the diskettes. Try installing from the copies. If the copies don't work, you will need replacement disks. Call NewDeal customer service department for replacements.

Video Problems or "Error in script line 244"

If you see the message "Error in script Line 244," or if your video display is distorted, or if you see the NewDeal logo and nothing else, you're having video trouble.

NewDeal software provides several LOADER.EXE files - one for each supported video device:

loaderhg.exe for Hercules
loadermc.exe for mcga
loadercg.exe for cga
loadereg.exe for ega
loadervg.exe for vga

During installation, the correct file for your video type is renamed to LOADER.EXE. For example, if you have a VGA monitor, LOADERVG.EXE would be renamed to LOADER.EXE.

Sometimes the installation program can't rename the file and there is an error message such as "Error in script line 244 - error renaming file." If this happens, follow these steps

Use the Installation Tools option of the install program to install the correct loaderxx.exe file for your video card per the above list.

Rename the file to LOADER.EXE by going to the NEWDEAL DOS prompt and entering:
REN LOADERVG.EXE LOADER.EXE
(substitute the correct LOADERxx.EXE in the place of LOADERVG.EXE if you are using a different type of video).

Check to make sure the GEOS.INI file has the correct driver lines in the [screen 0] section. The driver lines for VGA will look like this:
[screen0] device = VGA 640x480 16 color driver = Standard VGA Driver
For a Hercules-compatible adapter,use:
[screen 0] device = Hercules HGC Compatible: 720 x 348 Mono driver = Hercules Monochrome Driver
For an EGA-compatible adapter, use:
[screen 0] device = EGA: 640x350 16-color driver = EGA Driver
For a CGA-compatible adapter, use:
[screen 0] device = CGA: Compatible: 640x200 Mono driver = CGA Driver
For an IBM-MCGA adapter, use:
[screen 0] device = IBM MCGA: 640x480 Mono driver = MCGA Driver

Once your NewDeal software is installed and running, you can launch Preferences and use the video module to change your video display type.

If installation stops at the printer selection

If you get past the video selection and the mouse driver selection, but the installation hangs or stops at the printer selection, especially on a fast Pentium or 486 computer, then you may need to edit the GEOS.INI file to bypass that part of the installation process. Here's how:

At the DOS prompt, use the EDIT command (or DR-DOS 6EDITOR) or some other text editor to modify the GEOS.INI file. A typical command to launch the DOS editor would be:

EDIT C:\NEWDEAL\GEOS.INI

In your editor, look for the line near the beginning of the GEOS.INI file that reads:

continueSetup = true

change it to

continueSetup = false

Then exit the editor and run NewDeal normally.

Disks are all Disk 1 (one)

If the installer prompts you for diskette #2 when you've already inserted diskette #2, you may be running a disk cache that does not properly flush its queue between floppy disks. To test, try inserting several different diskettes and enter a DIR command at the DOS prompt for each one. If DIR does not correctly identify each diskette, you will need to disable your disk cache software while installing. This same problem can also be caused by a broken drive line detector in your floppy drive.

If the diskettes are copies of the original installation diskettes and do not have the same names as the originals, or if the diskettes have been renamed, the installer may not recognize the disks properly. Try removing the volume labels. In other words, rename the diskettes with blank or empty names. You can use the LABEL command at the DOS prompt, like this:

LABEL A:

Then press ENTER to give the diskette no name. Repeat for each diskette.

Large disk drives

The installers for some NewDeal products were written before the existence of very large hard disk drives. In some cases, the installer may report "not enough disk space" even though there is plenty of disk space available. If you are sure you have enough disk space, try to tell the installation program to go ahead and install the software anyway by telling it no, you do not want to choose a different drive.

If that doesn't work, here are a few other approaches:

Copy some "garbage" files to the hard disk, until you have less than 200 MB free. You could, for example, duplicate a very large file several times using different names, or you could use PKZIP to ZIP up an entire directory of files. Then you'd be able to complete the installation of the software. Remember to delete the garbage files after the installation.
Separate your hard disk into two or more partitions. It's a good idea to separate bigger hard disk into a few smaller partitions because it's easier to do a backup from one partition only, smaller cluster sizes save disk space, and it provides a safety factor when running various software (if a program crashes and damages files, the damage will be limited to only the one partition).
One other work around you might try is this: Create a directory on the hard disk and copy the files GEOS.INI from diskette #1 into that directory. Then install into that directory. This works by fooling the installer into thinking that you already have the software installed.

For further information, consult either NEWHELP or INSTALL.TXT.

If all else fails

If NewDeal still won't install, and if you have adequate disk space on your hard drive, try copying all the installation files from the installation disks to the root of the hard drive where you intend to install NewDeal. Then run INSTALL.EXE on the hard drive.

It's installed, but it won't run

If NewDeal installs, but then won't run, check these items:

Check to see if the GEOS.INI file is marked Read-Only. At the DOS prompt, change to the directory where you installed NewDeal and enter ATTRIB. Look for an R in front of the file name GEOS.INI. If there is an R, enter this command to remove the Read-Only attribute:
ATTRIB -R GEOS.INI
If you use Windows, you can check for and change the Read-Only attribute using Windows File Manager or Windows Explorer.

If you are running NewDeal from Windows 95 or Windows 98, try temporarily renaming your CONFIG.SYS file and rebooting. On most computers, you do not need a CONFIG.SYS file when using Windows 95 or 98. If NewDeal then works, you may be loading a legacy DOS driver for a hardware device that is supported by a Windows driver, most often this is the driver for your CD-ROM. If so, remove or REMark that line in the CONFIG.SYS file and rename the file back to CONFIG.SYS.

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Last Modified 17 Feb 1999