Works for Windows: Setup May Hang After You Make a Selection

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Office for Windows, version 4.0
• Microsoft Works for Windows, version 3.0, 3.0a
• Microsoft Windows operating system version 3.1, 3.11

SYMPTOMS

Setup stops responding (hangs) after you select Minimum, Complete, or Custom Installation, or after making your Program Group or Directory selection.

CAUSE

This problem may occur for one of the following reasons:

• There is not enough MS-DOS environment space.
• You are starting Windows from the DOSSHELL or any other MS-DOS shell.
• You have third-party Windows shell programs.
• Invalid WINDIR.
• Corrupt REG.DAT file.

RESOLUTION

Make the following changes to your system to troubleshoot this problem:

1. Disable any third-party Windows shells such as Norton Desktop, DashBoard, and so on by changing the SHELL= line in the [boot] section of your SYSTEM.INI file to read as follows:

         SHELL=PROGMAN.EXE
   

2. Disable DOSSHELL or any other Shell from which you are starting Windows.

3. Increase the environment space to 1024 as specified in the CONFIG.SYS SHELL= line. It should read as follows:

         SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM C:\DOS\ /P /E:1024
   

4. Manually add SHARE.EXE with the correct parameters to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. It should read as follows:

         C:\DOS\SHARE.EXE /L:500 /F:5100
   

5. Free conventional memory by removing all unnecessary device drivers and memory resident software (TSRs). Add the following lines to the CONFIG.SYS file if they are not already present:

         DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS
         DOS=HIGH,UMB
   

   NOTE: Completely disable all other memory management programs before adding the EMM386.EXE line. See the documentation that came with the memory management program for details about disabling the program.

6. Try running Windows in standard mode by typing "win /s" (without the quotation marks) from the MS-DOS prompt.

7. Verify that the WINDIR setting is correct. WINDIR is an environment variable set by Windows, based on the path in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If the PATH statement in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file includes the Windows program directory without the drive (for example, "\WINDOWS" instead of "C:\WINDOWS"), Windows may set the WINDIR variable incorrectly. If the WINDIR setting is incorrect, Works may not be able to locate necessary Windows drivers to set up properly.

   For steps on determining if the WINDIR setting is correct, query on the following keywords in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

         WINDIR and variable and set and invalid
   

   For steps to correct the invalid path or corrupt REG.DAT file, query on the following keywords in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

         invalid and path and REG.DAT and corrupt
   

STATUS

This problem does not occur in Microsoft Works version 3.0b for Windows.