Ahem....Freecell problem....:)

[orange]

Hi All,

Have a customer with a 6 week old system which i built for her that has a problem with Freecell, of all things. What happens is that the graphics on the cards disappear and are replaced with a grey/white cross hatching effect. Dragging cards leaves elements of the card all over the screen. Shutting down and rebooting does not cure the problem. Uninstalling and then reinstalling the 'Games' option from Add/remove programs/Windows does cure the problem. However, after a few games play, the problem returns. I suspect its some software clash but haven't had a real good chance to take a look at the system yet. I also have a ghost image that i could restore from, but this may not cure the problem in the long run. Have tried MS knowledge base but didn't find anything remotely useful. Everything else is functioning fine, Virus dats are up to date. Anybody else ever have any similar problems?

System Spec: Gigabyte GA7IXE4, Duron 750, 64MB PC133, ATI Charger 4MB, SB PCI128, Maxtor 20GB, Delta 52x CDROM, LG Studioworks SW560N monitor.

[MacGyver]

Try reinstalling the games via add/remove programs. Pay special attention to the cards.dll file. Also check the video drivers, sounds like a video driver problem.

My wife had a different problem with Freecell, which was solved by downloading FreeCellPro from www.freecell.org .

[orange]

Yep, did the add/remove and new cards.dll was installed. As i said, worked ok for a few games then went squiffy again. Not sure about vid drivers as everything else, including all other games (not just MS ones) work a-ok. Once i get it in i'll have a look at throwing the latest vid drivers on anyway, just to make sure. FreeCellPro is not an option as this lady is slowly working her way through every Freecell game (started at game 00001). She has all the completed ones in a notebook....folks do the strangest things eh?! <IMG SRC="smilies/tongue.gif" border="0">

[Gabriel]

Replace the USER...
I just hate people who nags about stupid things...

[DANIMAL]

clean up you *.tmp file through Find files.

[Zonie]

I had this problem with some of my programs. It turned out to be a combination of Needing an Updated video driver and checking the refresh rate of your monitor. Once this was done no more problems.

[Ya_know]

Originally posted by Zonie:
<STRONG>I had this problem with some of my programs. It turned out to be a combination of Needing an Updated video driver and checking the refresh rate of your monitor. Once this was done no more problems.</STRONG>

Seen the exact thing on my mom's PC with solitaire. Refresh, and video are right on the money. Download and install most current driver, and make adjustments, you should see an improvement. If that doesn’t work, test a different video card to see what happens.

[Wildman6971]

I would say check the video drivers, most likely a problem in that area. Has always been related to this when I have had problems like this.

[Larommi]

I had a similar problem. Freecell and Solitaire would do the same thing. Turned out to be software. McAfee Uninstall for that matter.

Try running MSConfig and shut everything down in startup and try playing and see if it does the same thing.

[Apathy]

Video drivers. That is the best place to start.

[iamtheman]

Originally posted by orange:
<STRONG>FreeCellPro is not an option as this lady is slowly working her way through every Freecell game (started at game 00001). She has all the completed ones in a notebook....folks do the strangest things eh?! <IMG SRC="smilies/tongue.gif" border="0"></STRONG>

My Mom is doing the exact same thing, I accidentily deleted the shortcut to freecell once and she freaked.

<IMG SRC="smilies/biggrin.gif" border="0">

[orange]

Hi All,

I had a chance to take a look at this system today. It turns out that the fault only occurs when you use the 'Select Game' option from the File Menu. As the owner is playing each game in turn she enters the game number manually and then clicks OK with the mouse. This is when the cards go all weird. If, however, she hits Enter on the keyboard instead of clicking OK with the mouse, the game plays fine!?! Turns out the problem was a conflict with a piece of s/w her daughter had installed, called Invideo WinRip, which is a movie/MP3 tool. It was sitting in the system tray and once i shut it down, Freecell played flawlessly. Simply removed its shortcut from the Startup folder and rebooted and all works properly again.

Don't you just love computers and their lusers <IMG SRC="smilies/frown.gif" border="0">

[Ya_know]

Originally posted by orange:
<STRONG>Hi All,

Turns out the problem was a conflict with a piece of s/w her daughter had installed, called Invideo WinRip, which is a movie/MP3 tool. It was sitting in the system tray and once i shut it down, Freecell played flawlessly. Simply removed its shortcut from the Startup folder and rebooted and all works properly again. <IMG SRC="smilies/frown.gif" border="0"></STRONG>

Great troubleshooting. I am glad you solved it without too much trouble. Our suggestions, although worked in the situations we encountered, would have slowed you way down. It was smart to look for bogus apps first!

[ilovetheusers]

Originally posted by Gabriel:
<STRONG>Replace the USER...
I just hate people who nags about stupid things...</STRONG>

I gave my mom about $500 or so worth of computer one year and so far (apart from internet and e-mail) it's been my mothers solitare machine. Ya gotta love 'em. Thousands of years of evoloution to play card games on a computer.