Purpose of FOXRSTRT.EXE & How to Troubleshoot Problems

• Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Windows, version 3.0

SUMMARY

FOXRSTRT.EXE is used when Visual FoxPro is installed under Windows and Windows for Workgroups. This article describes the purpose of this executable and gives some of the errors that can occur with FOXRSTRT.

MORE INFORMATION

As a 32-bit application, Visual FoxPro requires a 32-bit operating environment. Under Windows and Windows for Workgroups, the Setup program detects that the native operating environment is 16-bit, so it installs Win32s along with a 32-bit executable and 32-bit OLE custom controls (.OCX files).

When the installation is complete, the system must restart Windows to register the 32-bit .OCX files and assign an icon to VFP.EXE. After you reboot (restart) your computer, it is running Win32s (32-bit environment) and FOXRSTRT.EXE is launched. This executable tells the 32-bit .OCX files to self register and assigns an icon to the 32-bit VFP.EXE and IMAGEDIT.EXE. FOXRSTRT.EXE is called in the Load line of the WIN.INI, and runs only once after you install Visual FoxPro under Windows and Windows for Workgroups.

FOXRSTRT.EXE may take a few minutes to run, and restarting Windows might be slower than usual. If by accident you manually reboot the machine before FOXRSTRT has completed, the .OCX files might not be registered, and the MS-DOS icon might still be assigned to the VFP.EXE file. You can however perform these tasks manually:

• To reassign a correct icon for 32-bit Visual FoxPro, select the Visual FoxPro icon in Program Manager; then click Properties on the Files menu.
• To register .OCX files, run REGSVR32.EXE located in the VFP\SAMPLES\OLE directory. Use the following syntax for each .OCX file if FOXRSTRT fails or is interrupted:

        REGSVR32.EXE c:\windows\system\msoutl32.ocx
  

   Outline            MSOUTL32.OCX
   Picture Clip       PICCLP32.OCX

Troubleshooting Error Messages

"Load line contains more than 90 characters" Error:

If the LOAD line of the WIN.INI file contains more than 90 characters after Setup installs Win32s, a system error related to a device driver might occur when you restart Windows. This behavior occurs because setup adds FOXRSTRT.EXE to the LOAD line. The addition of characters causes an error.

"Missing or Invalid FOXSTART.DAT" Error:

This error might occur if setup has not completed. When this error happens, FOXRSTRT is not removed from the WIN.INI file. You can safely remove FOXRSTRT.EXE from the LOAD line in the WIN.INI file; then follow the procedure described above to manually register the .OCX files and assign an icon to VFP.EXE and to IMAGEDIT.EXE.