Hi Lawrence,

> What eventually fixed it was simply copying my Guide directory files
> from a different computer!

That'll almost always work. One issue here can be that Guide may
look for files on a different CD-ROM drive (say, one machine has things
set up so the CD is letter D: and the other has it on drive letter E:.)
In this situation, I'd recommend getting the current update, because
I recently revised it so that it would be bright enough to say: "If we
can't find data at the drive letter where it's supposed to be, let's
ask Windows which drive(s) are CD-ROM drives and look there."

> I believe that one of the best 'fixes' is as was suggested - do a
> complete reinstall. This does frustrate the 'fix it' in me though!

Well, yes... it's frustrating on several levels. First, it may
mean that you have to reset all of your personal settings (lat/lon,
time zone, color and magnitude level preferences, and so on).
_Most_ of those can be saved as a 'Personal Defaults' mark file,
and I recommend doing that anyway. But not everything is stored
in mark files. If, say, you've created your own overlays, or
toggled user-added datasets, or downloaded some DSS images or star
catalog data, that'll get lost when you re-install.

Second, it's just Not Supposed To Happen. This is a really strange
bug, in that it appears Guide starts writing out an updated 'startup.mar'
file, only to give up after a few lines and shut down. (It would help
if I could replicate the bug, but that hasn't happened yet.) I'm
still digging into it. Again, if anyone encounters this, please send
me your 'startup.mar' file, as well as any thoughts as to what might have
happened ("gee, that's odd, it happened when I hit XYZ", or "when I
shut down the computer with Guide running", or...)

-- Bill