MicroSquirt.com read only forum (Jan.15,2018)

I was having trouble with the dialog boxes dropping down on MT, and the mtCfg would not open. After spending a couple of weeks searching the posts and messing around with my laptop, everything works great now. Generally, here is what I found, in hopes that it will assist someone else having similar problems. I am running Windows98 with MegaSquirt-II v.3.

DIALOG BOX DROP-DOWN FAILURE: I found a string where Bill Steele was having identical problems with MT. When left clicking on the subject above the dialog box, nothing would happen. The cure was really simple. Just click on the subject and move the cursor down to where the dialog box is supposed to appear and, in about a second, it will appear. A little more on this later.

MTCFG.EXE FAILS TO OPEN: I found a string titled "Question for patient soul" in which is described the existence and purpose of a program called "Dependency Walker." I downloaded it into Program Files from a site found using Google http://www.dependencywalker.com/ , and ran mtCfg.exe through it. The result showed 3 system files that my laptop was missing and which were needed to open mtCfg.exe. Again, Google provided numerous sites where I could download the files in zipped format. One suggested that I download WinZip to open the files, so I also did that, and placed it also into Program Files. The three files that I downloaded were apphelp.dll, msi.dll, and userenv.dll, which I placed into C:/windows/system. I then went back to WinZip and did a zip file search to locate all of the zipped files on my laptop. It appeared that I had failed to unzip the 3 files, so that needed to be done.

You can imagine my disappointment and frustration when mtCfg still failed to open. The cure, after considerable anguish and beating of chest, was easy. I uninstalled MegaTune entirely from my laptop, and reinstalled the latest version, which was MegaTune225b715. I then went to Eric's download instructions and explicitly followed them about changing the Megatune-II.ini file to match my firmware (File -> Activate). Following through the setup prompts, I was able to open both MegaTune and mtCfg. It was a great feeling! The gauge colors are beautiful.

You can imagine my disappointment and frustration when, coming back a few hours later to relish my triumph of man over machine, MegaTune refused to open from my desktop shortcut. I went to Windows Explorer and opened up MegaTune with success. It then dawned upon me that the shortcut was created prior to me changing the megasquirt-II.ini file. With near feverish excitement, I deleted the desktop shortcut, opened up Windows Explorer, and created a new shortcut.

You can imagine my trepidation as I moved the cursor to the shortcut, held my breath, and double-clicked. I was either going to soar like an eagle or go down like a flaming chicken hawk. MegaTune opened up!! I could already feel the wind in my face! To my continued surprise, even the dialog boxes dropped down just as they are supposed to do. Go figure!

I hooked up my MegaSquirt to the laptop, connected the Stim, and took her for a test drive. It was exhilarating!

The moral of this story is that attempting to understand how computers operate is very daunting and mind numbing in the extreme, especially for us older people. If you have trouble with MegaTune working properly, and then screw around with it some, then it is best to uninstall the program, reinstall with the latest version, and be very careful to follow Eric's good directions to the letter when configuring MegaTune.

Good Luck,
Chuck

Chuck,

Thanks for the write up, I'll make copies of those missing libraries on my site, so people don't need to search around. I'm at a loss as to why they are on my machines and not on others. My 98 box has msi.dll, but is missing apphelp and userenv, but mtCfg runs anyhow...

I just uploaded the libraries you mention to http://www.not2fast.com/megasquirt/mt/p ... ssingLibs/ so if anyone else needs them, these are the ones from my Win2k development laptop.

Eric

Speedster wrote:You can imagine my disappointment and frustration when, coming back a few hours later to relish my triumph of man over machine, MegaTune refused to open from my desktop shortcut. I went to Windows Explorer and opened up MegaTune with success. It then dawned upon me that the shortcut was created prior to me changing the megasquirt-II.ini file. With near feverish excitement, I deleted the desktop shortcut, opened up Windows Explorer, and created a new shortcut.

Chuck,

Now this one is pretty bizarre, as the shortcut should not contain any configuration-specific information, it merely launches MT in the MegaSquirt directory... Just out of curiosity, did you set the startup directory? If not, could you do right-mouse -> Properties on your shortcut and tell me what the "Start in" field contains on the "Shortcut" tab?

Eric

Checking the shortcut properties, it contains my path to MegaTune, which is "C:\Program Files\MegaSquirt\MegaTune2.25b715"

When I tried to open MegaTune prior to deleting the shortcut, I received an error message that referred to a problem with MegaSquirt-II.ini. From this I assumed, maybe erroneously so, that since I had deleted the original MegaSquirt-II.ini file after the shortcut was created, and renamed the MegaSquirt-II.ini.2.3 file to MegaSquirt-II.ini, that now the original shortcut was somehow corrupted. At any rate, deleting the original shortcut and creating a new one solved the problem.

Chuck

Having given the shortcut question some more thought, I recalled that the original desktop shortcut was in my Recycle Bin. I restored it and it opened up MegaTune just fine. So, I do not know what the problem was, but now everything works. I also recall reading about another installer deleting and reinstalling the shortcut to achieve success. Who knows, but whatever makes things work is OK.

Chuck

In reference to the dialog boxes not dropping down, I have this exact same problem. It was working fine until I did the whole install for MSnExtra. I followed all of the instructions exactly but it won't work. I can open the menus by pressing the "down" cursor key, but it's very annoying!

Anyone know how to fix this?

-Doc

Try increasing the timer interval value in Communcations -> Settings. The whole problem is the timer thread hogging all of CPU time and not leaving the draw code any time to update.

Eric

MT is very slow in win98. Increasing that number at communications, makes it littlebit faster. But still slow. It worked a lot faster at win2k. What to do ?
400ms interval, makes speed mutch faster, but not enough and menus slide down is garbagled(however it should write).
Ibm thinkpad 600
Intel P2
128mb
Win98Se finnish
Newest drivers installed from ibm internet site
Visual basic runtime 6 sp3.0 installed for the lambda software.

Masi,

That machine is way faster than the one I use to develop the code, so I suspect there is something else going on. Try turning on Communications -> Diagnostic Log and then scan the resulting comm.log for errors. There shouldn't be any; if there are, they can really slow down response as the comm routines can hang waiting for timeouts to occur.

Eric

You were right, no errors in mtcomm/common -file. Slight speed up found when connected to ms. But not good.
DxDiag gone trought with no errors. But that coloured box rolled slowly. Maybe Ok and I quess that Mt doesn't use directx...