| Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 17:53:18 -0400
From: Bob Fleischer <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
Organization: Digital Equipment Corp. Systems Integration HQ
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.misc,comp.fonts
To: [email protected]
Subject: Can bad font crash Windows NT?
I have had a nightmare of a time trying to fix a bunch of random
problems with many applications, including blue screen crashes, in
Windows NT Workstation V4.0 (SP2, SP3, no service packs -- didn't
matter).
The only common thread in all this (and the realization came only after
much observation) is the use of certain fonts. Sometimes applications
would crash when certain fonts were selected. Sometimes the system
crashed when documents with certain fonts were printed. Win16
applications that display font samples just wouldn't start up (gave a
NTVDM crash). Other times the documents just printed incorrectly
(mostly, missing text) or even, in the case of Netscape Communicator
PR4, non-italic text didn't display.
I started going through the fonts in the font control applet, and I
found one that wouldn't display when double-clicked. I deleted that
one. Other things that previously failed on this system now started to
work properly!
This problem was particularly irksome because in the interim I tried to
fix the system with the repair disk, and even reloaded the entire system
(with no end of problems in trying to restore from the latest backup
tape). I had a similar problem about a half year ago that seemed to be
fixed by the repair disk route -- but this time no such luck.
My system has a lot of fonts I've accumulated over the years from many
generations of desktop publishing software installations.
Is there any tool for checking the integrity of fonts on Windows NT? It
would seem that, if fonts can crash a system, there must be one.
--
Bob Fleischer
Digital Equipment Corporation, Network and Systems Integration Services
110 Spit Brook Road (ZKO1-1/J33), Nashua, NH 03062 (603) 881-0426
[email protected] http://www.tiac.net/users/rjf/
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This is just a shot in the dark.
If you are running a screen-saver, try turning it off.
(I say that because I [somewhat suddenly] started having random
system-crashes on my Intel V4.0/SP2 box at home. Luckily, I
finally remembered what I had recently changed on the system...I
had enabled the 3-D text screen saver. After disabling that
screen saver, the crashes abruptly ceased.)
Fwiw, I also have an S3-based (PCI) video card on this Pentium-class
machine, though I don't really know if those facts are relevant.
Hope this helps...
Dave
[who doesn't mind 'shooting in the dark']
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