PRF extension causing serious issues with MS Office

[Matthew Reeve 914466]

Hi Gergely

 

I am having serious problems when operating Euroscope and MS Office in the same Windows session. If I have had Outlook open, Euroscope crashes on startup - the system requires a hard reboot as the whole system freezes up and it won't respond to the task manager and following this the resolution the only way of recovering ES is to delete the active PRF file (usually default.prf in the Program Files/Euroscope folder). If Euroscope has been opened first then Outlook will freeze.

 

I have spent a lot of the weekend and the conflict has always been resolved by ensuring euroscope does not load a prf file which as been saved on my computer. I get the impression that this is because Outlook starts changing things in open ES .prf files and when ES loads it crashes because it either can't read it or it doesn't know what to do with it.

 

Anything I can do to resolve this issue? Happy to send crash dumps if you need them.

 

Matthew

[Stephan Boerner 945550]

.prf is also the file format for Outlook profiles, but I don't really think they could collide ... Do you try to start ES with a double click on the .prf which then opens Outlook and corrupts the file? Try to add the .prf to the Euroscope link ... I have Outlook open whenever my PC is running and there is no conflict between ES and Outlook at all. Maybe You should give a few more details about what You do with the prf-files/ES/Outlook.

[Matthew Reeve 914466]

Both started via desktop shortcuts, I don't open either program via the prf file, I've come to the conclusion that this is where the conflict is. I've turned off the features to automatically save the profile and to load the last known one - the only way I can get ES to work is to load one of the provided profiles. Incidentally, the problem also stops VRC from loading up the graphics... Could it be that there's a setting in the PRF file which might cause OpenGL to get confused, perhaps?

[Stephan Boerner 945550]

Did You open the .prf with a text editor to check if there's something messed up in it, maybe the path of the settings file or the sectorfile? I don't see anything in the .prf file that would be related to OpenGL. There are only some references to the sound/voice settings, the last used asr files and your connection details including your VATSIM p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]word in plain text. I don't really see how the profile could cause your problem. Maybe You can paste your prf file here (of course after deleting the p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]word) if You think something might be wrong, but I don't think it's a problem with the profile.

[Gergely Csernak]

Matthew,

 

I am 99% sure that it has no connection to the profile file extension. EuroScope opens the PRF file just as plain TEXT file, and closes immediately after loading the data inside. It is not open when you are using it. Well the content may cause problems, even it should not. Did you find something wrong in that file?

 

I think that ES and Outlook conflicts on some other resources. That could be some common DLL or DirectX access. ES does not use OpenGL, nor DirectX for display. Only the voice communication uses some DirectX functionality.

 

Can you send some crash dumps. May be we can find some more information there.

[Matthew Reeve 914466]

I've given up. I've formatted the OS partition and will be reinstalling windoze. I still have the crash dump, Gergely, can you PM me with your email address if you still want it?

 

By the way, is there any chance of a linux version?

[Gergely Csernak]

Matthew,

 

Send me a mail to [email protected] and continue on private.