*** Wintune 97 Release 1.0 (03/25/97) *** Thank you for trying Wintune 97. This file lists solutions to common problems you may have. Please read it before posting questions. Thanks! Wintune 97 is meant only for the release version (build 950) of Windows 95 or later, and for Windows NT 3.51 or later. This release fixes some problems encountered in the Video and disk tests, identifies newer kinds of processors, and adds tips for SCSI drives. It also loads much faster than the earlier version, and, in its Windows 95 version, it has a much smaller download size. ============ INSTALLATION ============ After you have downloaded the file, you must first unzip it. You cannot double click on Setup.exe in the Winzip window and have the setup operate properly, because setup first needs all the files expanded. Run SETUP.EXE and follow the prompts. If Setup determines that some of the files are already on the system, or if Wintune is installed a second time, the install progress bar won't always go to 100%. This is "normal". Also, after the setup runs there may be an empty button with no caption on the task bar. Clicking it will make it go away. This is "normal" too. Missing DLLs ------------ If Wintune doesn't start and you get a message you're missing MFCxxx.DLL, you do not have some of the standard Windows support DLL files. Under Windows 95, this may have happened because Win95 was installed with Custom or Compact setup options. You can nudge Win95 to install the needed DLLs by installing WordPad. From Control Panel, click Add/Remove Programs. Click the Windows Setup tab and double-click Accessories. Scroll down to the bottom of the list and check WordPad. OK your way out to complete the installation. Windows NT users should download the version of Wintune specifically designed for Windows NT, which contains the .DLLs you need to run Wintune 97 under NT 3.51 or later. Windows 95 users who do not have access to their setup disks should download the file WT97NT.ZIP. It includes the extra files you need to run WT97 if your Windows 95 installation does not have them installed. Windows NT users can also download WT97NT.ZIP if you wish. The files it contains were not included in our Windows 95 download package because they more than double the total size of the current Wintune download, and are often already on your system. On Windows 95 these files should be placed in the Windows SYSTEM directory; Windows NT needs these files in the SYSTEM32 directory. ======= SUPPORT ======= Inside Wintune, you can generally get help on any result or tip by clicking the Tell Me More button, by double-clicking the item, or by right-clicking and selecting Tell Me More. We've tried to make it easy to get to the help file! We'll be taking feedback and answering questions in both the America Online and Compuserve WinMag forums in the Wintune 97 folder/section. Since many people have the same questions, you may find your questions already answered there. Or E-mail us at WINTUNE@WINMAG.COM. Making a WTX file ----------------- If you want to send your results to another user, or send them to us so we can help diagnose a problem, you need to produce a Wintune export (.WTX) file: 1) Start Wintune 97. 2) Click the Analyze Now button. 3) Wait until the testing is complete. 4) Select File/Export Current from the menu. 5) Type in a directory and file name. The file you create is an ASCII (plain text) file in a special format that Wintune can import into its database. You can either attach it to a message, or you can insert the text of the WTX file directly into an email or forum message. If you geta WTX file from another user, you can import it into Wintune 97 by simply using Drag and Drop. Either drag the file into the database tab, or drag the file onto the Wintune 97 icon. Note that the file must have the .WTX extension or Wintune will not import it. You will not get a warning, but the import will not work. =============== System Analyzer =============== * Wintune is reporting the BIOS information stored in the Registry, but this appears to only be set by Windows 95 upon installation. If you upgrade the BIOS or switch the disk to a new system, the new version info will not be reflected. Windows NT updates this info each time it boots, so it doesn't have this problem. This is a Win95 bug, we may bypass them and do our own groping in a future release. ============ CPU Analyzer ============ * Some 486DX2 and 486DX4 CPUs are reported simply as 486DX. This is because those CPUs do not have a way for software to determine internal versus external clock rate. Newer models support a CPUID instruction which specifies the CPU type. * Wintune should now accurately report the Cyrix 6x86 processors. It will identify a Cyrix 5x86, but may not properly report the clock speed for these processors. * Wintune should now properly identify AMD K5 and K6 processors but may not properly report their clock rates. If you observe this situation, please export a WTX file and send it to us, along with the true clock speed of your system, at WINTUNE@WINMAG.COM. =============== Memory Analyzer =============== * Wintune 97 gets its Installed RAM result from Windows (NT or 95). However, Windows 95 does not appear to count any memory that is used by DOS device drivers or the BIOS itself (e.g. used for ROM shadowing). This may cause the Installed RAM reported to be lower than the actual amount of installed RAM. We may bypass them and do our own groping in a future release. ============== Video Analyzer ============== * The test used to run in a 640X480 window, but it now runs in full-screen mode. * The new video analyzer in Wintune 97 will give results that are very different from those in Wintune 95. Improvements in reported speed vary about 50% for slower older systems to as much as 3x improvement in the newer faster systems. We plan to publish guidance for estimating the speed you should expect in Wintune 97 compared to that in Wintune 95. ============= Disk Analyzer ============= * Both the cached and uncached tests may vary by more than 10 percent on systems with less than 10MB of RAM. This is due to swapping. The problem will be worse if you have created a large Wintune database, (Wtun97.wtd) so keep the database small. * Some systems give an uncached result that is clearly not uncached. For example, the cached result on one system was 13MB/s but "uncached" was 14MB/s! This seems to occur with systems using DOS compatibility (16-bit) drivers and some third-party drivers. We're still checking this problem out, and would like reports from affected users. * One user of an Adaptec 2942 SCSI controller reported an uncached number of 0.8 MB/s but copying a large file yielded a more credible 3 MB/s. This result comes about because of write-behind caching of SCSI disks. We have added a tip to apprise users of the apparent inconsistency and possible remedies. * If you see a change greater than about 10% from the uncached disk score you received from Wintune 95, please E-mail the .WTX file from both programs for the same computer to WINTUNE@WINMAG.COM * You may get an inaccurate block size reported in your results if you are running Windows 95 and if your disk is over 2GB. We use Windows 95's function GedDiskFreeSpaceEx to determine disk information, and the info it returns, especially with such large disks, is inaccurate. This will be fixed in an upcoming release. ============= Apps Analyzer ============= * Instructions for building your own app tests are included in the help file. Right-click the Apps node in the Details tab and select Tell Me More. * Some times the apps analyzer hangs. There seems to be no apparent pattern that would account for this behavior. There is, however, one cause we have been able to identify. If you are running the Prank Fix virus package for Word, you will get a dialog box (that will be hidden). Since you don't respond, this looks like the macro is hanging. ALT-TAB to Word to see if this is the case. If the apps hang in other places, please let us know. ========== Help Files ========== * For modularity, the help files are implemented as separate files for each analyzer and a main help file. Cross-file references have not been implemented, so you need to start with an idea of what (video, disk, CPU, memory) you want to check out. Or you can browse all the help files by going to the Details tab; for each analyzer right-click the name and select Tell Me More. * Help files have been updated for this release. * Right clicking on some tips in the Reports tab will not pop up a context menu. If you want to view the help item for that tip, go to the Details tab and right click the tip there. That will bring up the proper help item. *** END OF README ***