Re: [guide-user] Re: "Testing" update now "official"

substellar@Safe-mail.net Jul 23, 2010

Hi Bill

I'm no real techie, but there was recently something major security issue wise going on with Directx and xp, which didn't apply to vista and windows 7, and which wasn't mentioned much for earlier versions because all support for pre xp service pack 3 has died a death (besides which, you can't run anything later than directx 9.0c on pre-XP machines I believe, something like that, real techies would know).

Guide's Help screens are a bit sideways, they seem to be a 'graphics mode' instead of a 'text mode', so I dunno.

But ss you say, blaming the OS can often be a red herring and the OS not at fault after all.

But as I say, there's been some serious XP security updates and patches of late which _earlier_ OS users don't suffer from because the patch is irrelevant to them and/or they're not supported anymore, and later OS users don't get because there're different cores to the OSes.

Having said that, I suppose it would be more likely for most Guide users to be on win xp.

And having said that, if he can see other GOTO screens with underlined colour, and can GOTO the star names, it's a very specific bug indeed. I think the thing Dr Clay mostly does different from most other people in terms of normal Guide use is usually related to exotic asteroid stuff, which'd be a bit of a sideways cause and effect.

Cheers

John

-------- Original Message --------
From: Bill J Gray <pluto@...>
Apparently from: sentto-1412422-7743-1279897228-substellar=safe-mail.net@...
To: guide-user@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [guide-user] Re: "Testing" update now "official"
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:00:19 -0400


>
>
> Hi John,
>
> Much as I grouse about Microsoft, I have to admit that the
> assorted versions of Windows haven't brought me immense grief.
> Frequently, people will suggest that a given bug has something to
> do with a new version of Windows. I then get all ready to point
> the blame at Bill Gates, only to have to eventually admit that
> OK, I _did_ put a bug in the code.
>
> Exceptions have been in telescope control and one or two other
> small areas where Windows really _did_ change in some way that
> confused Guide. Not often, though.
>
> I say all this because, while it's _possible_ the Windows
> flavor is an issue here, I tend to doubt it. Especially so because
> at least thus far, only Clay has mentioned the issue (anyone else?
> it'd probably help a _lot_ if there were another instance of the
> problem to study). Sad to say, it's most likely "my bad", just
> in some way that is proving difficult to puzzle out.
>
> That said, with it happening on 13 machines, one _does_ look
> for common denominators. Everybody tends to configure Guide a
> little bit differently, and my guess is that Clay tends to maybe
> set up Guide so that dataset X is on, or turned green, or...
> _something_ just different enough to cause the issue. (Though I
> asked him to send me a 'startup.mar', and I didn't find any
> smoking gun, nor was I able to use it to replicate the bug. So
> I'm still digging into it.)
>
> -- Bill
>
>
>
>
>