Troubleshooting an Unsuccessful Windows 3.1 Installation

• Microsoft Windows versions 3.1, 3.11

SUMMARY

This article discusses troubleshooting unsuccessful installations of the Microsoft Windows operating system version 3.1 by examining the BOOTLOG.TXT file.

MORE INFORMATION

When Windows SETUP.EXE completes the character or text portion of Setup, and the system appears to hang, consider the following:

1. Wait from 30 to 60 seconds to ensure Windows has not hung. Windows may take up to 1 minute to switch from the text mode to the graphics mode of Setup.



2. If the screen still shows the character mode message, the problem occurred before the Windows display driver initialized.
   
   If the system is hung, restart your system and examine the BOOTLOG.TXT file by typing the following at the MS-DOS command prompt:

   type BOOTLOG.TXT | more

   If the BOOTLOG.TXT shows that the display driver or some other driver is not finished initializing, rerun Setup and select Custom Setup to explicitly select drivers. Also, select no network and no mouse (and reboot the machine without network software) to eliminate these possibilities. Make sure the display selected is valid.



3. If the screen becomes light gray when the hourglass appears, the display driver has finished initializing. Check BOOTLOG.TXT for other devices that have not initialized.



4. If the screen looks like the graphical portion of Setup has started, the user name and company screen is displayed. Check to ensure the correct keyboard is selected. Also, check to see if the reboot message appears when CTRL+ALT+DEL is pressed. If the screen displays "garbage" characters, an incorrect display driver is probably causing the problem, although this behavior may also be caused by hardware/software that is incompatible with DOSX.EXE, or another selected driver. Check BOOTLOG.TXT.



5. If BOOTLOG.TXT is missing, then most likely there is a problem with access to extended memory, or there is some software loading that does not work when protected mode is initiated.



6. If BOOTLOG.TXT exists, then the last thing listed should indicate the problem area. If BOOTLOG.TXT looks fine, then the problem could be a corrupt SETUP.EXE or SETUP.INF.

Additional query words: tshoot 3.10 locks lock up

Keywords :
Version : WINDOWS:3.1,3.11
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type :