Just installed.  TDS won't show GUI.

Hello.  I'm new to TDS.  Just installed it this morning on an Win XP Pro box.  The install appeared to go fine.  However, when I click on the icon to start TDS, neither a GUI nor system tray icon appear.  The tds-3.exe program does show up in the task manager (using 0% CPU, 10mb Mem, Normal priority) and the "Scan file with TDS-3" option appears when I right-click on a file in Windows Explorer, although it doesn't do anything.  I have rebooted since installation.  I also tried running it in Win2000 compatibility mode, but it made no difference.  Any ideas as to why it's not working?

 

RClark - Welcome to the forum!

Were you logged in as admin when you installed? Pete

 

Thanks.  I was not logged in with the "Administrator" account; however, I was logged in with my regular Admin-equivalent account.

 

Hi RClark
welcome to the forum.
I am not running XP nor 2000 myself, but i read many people install TDS both as an administrator and as a user (so two times) on their system to have it running at all levels and no matter how you log in.. Might help in your situation?

 

Try deleting

\TDS3\xDynamic\TDS.cfg\tds.cfg

And then loading. We are looking into this, it is a rare case. Please submit detailed system info to tech@diamondcs.com.au such as CPU type and speed, OS and version and other running processes. We would also appreciate any information you might have on other hardware including video and sound hardware, and driver versions for these - if not Windows XP default drivers. Many manufacturers have released updated drivers however, this could certainly help.

 

OK.  I left TDS installed under my account, logged out, and logged back in as "Administrator".  I installed TDS again to the same directory.  Unfortunately, I also got the same results.    TDS is showing up in the Applications list in Task Manager, but doing a "switch to" does not bring up the interface.  I'm stuck.  

 

Thanks for the response, Gavin.  You posted right as I was replying to Jooske!

I deleted the tds.cfg file and then attempted to start TDS.  I received a message stating that the tds.cfg file was missing but had been recreated.  I clicked OK, but then nothing else happened, just like before.  TDS was in the task list, but there was no way for me to interact with it.

I'll gather the sys info you requested an e-mail it tomorrow.  Hopefully we can find a solution as I've heard good things about TDS and am looking forward to getting it, assuming I can get it to work!

 

If you have time, you might want to try a full uninstall, reinstall and then delete the above file before ever starting TDS.

The same can be achieved a quicker way, do this instead..

Close TDS (terminate with task manager)
Delete the xDynamic\TDS.FPS folder
Delete the CFG file above
Try to start TDS

 

I tried the "quicker way" reinstall method you suggested, but had the same results.  I did notice that the files created in the new tds.fps folder had different ending numbers than the original files.  Don't know if that means anything.

I will send you my system info this evening (US time).  I'll also try running it in safe mode.  Should I delete the tds.fps folder and/or tds.cfg file before every attempt?

 

When i don't see GUI's it's a memory problem with too many processes at a time, but i might suppose this is not the case on your system, reading Gavin's tests.
No screen resolution problems or installed to run in the background with no icon in tray or systray (don't suppose so, can't remember such choices before opening the console at all).
I read so many people use TDS on XP.....
And i think all your other programs run fine with their GUI visible at wish?

 

Joose,

I have 512mb RAM and 32mb video RAM, so hopefully that's not the problem.  I do have a fair number of background processes running most of the time though.  I'm going to try running it in Safe mode tonight.  If it works, then I'll gradually add back the processes until I find the one (if any) that causes the problem.

I haven't set any "run in systray" option with TDS because I haven't even been able to display the console so that I could make such a change.  I assume it doesn't default to a "hidden" mode on initial install.

I do not have a display problem with any of my other apps or systray programs.  I don't think there is anything unusual about my PC.  It's a fairly typical 9-month-old homebilt.  I've listed the specs I can remember off the top of my head below.  I'll send a detailed list to Gavin when I get back home tonight.

If the problem were just with displaying the GUI, I would think there would be a spike in TDS-3.exe's CPU utilization when I asked TDS to scan a folder by using the right-click option in Windows Explorer (thereby bypassing the GUI initially), but nothing happens.

Here are my system highlights:
AMD Thunderbird 1200MHz/266FSB (not overclocked)
ASUS A7M266 motherboard
512mb Crucial PC2100 RAM
Leadtek Winfast GeForce2 Pro AGP 32mb RAM video card
Creative SoundBlaster Live Value sound card
Two IBM DeskStar 60GXP 40gb hard drives
AOpen CD-ROM drive
Toshiba DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive
Mitsumi Floppy drive
Microsoft Optical Wheel Mouse
Two Linksys Ethernet PCI cards
IEEE 1394 PCI card
Gateway monitor, keyboard, and modem
You probably don't care about PSU, HSF, case, and fans

All held together by WinXP Pro

(I also dual-boot to Win98SE, but I haven't done so since installing TDS and I only plan to run TDS in the XP partition)

 

Sounds all very fine, don't you think, even TDS seems silent with all this (sorry, not a nice joke).
Ever somebody had problems with her screen resolution too high, but that was solved somehow.
Of course immediately the question: when you try it on the Win98SE part, (just for a try) do you get it normal as it should?

XP Pro? hm.... that's Wayne/Gavin (and other specialists part) as there was a Pro user with (other kind of) problems, while the XP home users had no problems in that same part..... must try to remember if and how they solved that part, but the GUI part did not read yet.
The rightmouse click might be scanning without you seeing it? as this reports back in the console again!

For my system (compared with yours it feels like a 386 with win 3.11 on it, but it's not really ) when at TDS start (i start it manually after the reboot) and still testing and scanning i minimize TDS, i can't get it large and visible till the scan is finished. Not with a full system scan, although that is a rather heavy process so it can take a while before i see it on screen then. I should really get more memory, which might solve that problem.

I would go for the start without TDS and add one by one after TDS start, safe mode sounds good for that first test;
and after trying it in W98SE to see if you get it running there.
Fingers crossed!

 

OK.  If I don't get anywhere with the "clean start" route, I'll try to see if it works with my Win98SE partition.  Who knows?  Thanks for the suggestion.

I also have an XP Home box for the kids, but I don't see any point in installing it there since I don't plan on using it on their system and their system configuration is totally different from mine.

Does TDS create any log files (by default) that would show whether it was doing any scanning when I right-clicked on a folder?  Does it have any command-line options to force it to do a full system scan or something else that would be certain to show a CPU hit that I could monitor to see if it's the whole program that isn't working or just the interface.?

Also, I forgot to list a few devices in the list above:  USB printer, USB web cam, USB SmartMedia reader, USB hub, parallel port scanner.

 

I found the Logs directory.  This is all that it says:

08:47:11 [Init] This is an EVALUATION demo of TDS-3. Please see the help file for help on registering.
09:00:47 [Init] This is an EVALUATION demo of TDS-3. Please see the help file for help on registering.
09:01:44 [Init] This is an EVALUATION demo of TDS-3. Please see the help file for help on registering.
09:07:36 [Init] This is an EVALUATION demo of TDS-3. Please see the help file for help on registering.
23:43:29 [Init] This is an EVALUATION demo of TDS-3. Please see the help file for help on registering.
23:57:29 [Init] This is an EVALUATION demo of TDS-3. Please see the help file for help on registering.

etc. etc.


Also, I watched Task Manager when I started TDS-3.  CPU usage for that program immediately jumps up to 24% and then quickly drops back down to 0%.

 

Well, I restarted XP in Safe Mode and tried to run TDS.  It still wouldn't start.  I tried Safe Mode both with and without network support.  I also uninstalled and reinstalled it while in Safe Mode.  Still no console.  While in Safe Mode, I ran the System Information report and captured the task list.  I will send these to your support e-mail address in a bit.

On a positive note, I also booted up this PC to its Win98SE partition in Normal mode.  There I was able to install TDS and start it without a problem.  The GUI/console came up just fine.  While that doesn't do me much good since I'm in the process of doing away with that partition, it may help with troubleshooting the XP problem.

My conclusions so far:
-- Since it doesn't work in XP Safe Mode, it's probably not a conflict with any non-XP background application or service.
-- Since it does work in 98SE, it's probably not a conflict with a hardware device
-- My best guess at the remaining cluprits are device drivers and/or system .dlls that are causing the problem.

 

Your conclusions sound really reasonable. If you scan from the Win98Se part and scan all logical drives, does it also scan the XP partitions from there, or is that blocked?
Hope Wayne/Gavin can help you solve this part. It sounds like system files indeed, but you should have it with other software as well occasionally, so that confuses me... I've no XP around here to try some out..

 

Unfortunately, I can't scan my XP partition from the 98 partition because my XP drive is NTFS, which 98 can't read.

 

W98 not, TDS can...... bad luck you can't start it till Wayne / Gavin find possible solutions with you.
And of course your system info does not tell about conflicting files......
Do you have any tool running with which you can see which files and dll's are all hooked to which program?
i use for instance faber toys for that (www.faberbox.com) (free tool), not sure if it runs on XP yet, on w98se it does, . maybe it could just be a gdi.dll error or such a thing;
so now we know it runs on your win98se, it is not the screen resolution or that kind of drivers, vote more for your dll's idea. We also know it runs on XP in general home and pro edition, but some people have more luch then others with that. So where is the difference between home and pro edition?

 

Great suggestion, Jooske!  I downloaded and installed Faber Tools, started TDS-3 in XP and then ran Faber's dependency tool.  It was able to list all of the DLL and OCX files that TDS is calling, along with the versions and date stamps of those files and then outputs it to an HTML table.  That should help DCS with troubleshooting.  I'll send the output to DCS.  Thanks!

 

Happy that part works for you, i love Faber Toys for such analyses and see what specific dlls are doing.
Several of those functions are in TDS as well, but you could not reach them without the display....
Hope you get to something soon!
It is that you say you see the processes drop to 0% usage, so it is also not running hidden somehow.
Although, after all the initial scans it does not take any resources until you make it doing anything.
In the properties of the icon it does not say something like pathname -b -l or thing like that? Discovered this right now in another icon which does not show up the expected function.

 

I see you have tried the Windows 2000 compatibility mode.  Did you try the Windows 98 or any of the other modes just to see what happens?

 

Jooske - I checked the TDS shortcut I was using.  There are no switches (such as -b, -l, etc.) listed.

Linney - I tried all of the O/S compatibility modes from 2000 down to 95.  No change.  I even tried 640x480x256 mode.  No go.

Hopefully I will hear something from DCS soon.

 

I'm just thinking, you downloaded twice the whole thing, wasn't it? I suppose the newest with all the 3.2.1 update included? Didn't you get any message about missing files/drivers/ either during/after install in that or other programs, nor conflicts in the system files info?
Hope DCS comes with more tests and possible solutions.... as other XP pro users got it running......

 

The only version I've tried to install is v3.2.1.  No messages about missing files, etc.  The installation process went smoothly.  I haven't been able to find the installation log, if there is one.

No word yet from DCS.  Sigh......  

 

Mailed them again for you too.
Can hardly imagine the install file was corrupt, i suppose you got it two times from different mirrors?
Think TDS at least prefers 800/600, and a higher coloring like 32 bits,  but their max i don't know.
The only thing you did not try another monitor if i remember all your ideas by now, which would come to your suggestion of a driver, but...... no then it would not have worked with the Win98SE unless that would use other drivers for the same monitor (other versions?)
You (?) mentioned sound parts...... i can't imagine the sounds parts in XP would hurt this part of TDS.
If you read the other thread here about TDS-4, i explained to another XP user about the sound parts:
please have a look into that thread.
The thing is, XP uses the SAPI 5 speach technology, while TDS-3 uses the SAPI 4, which is the same for the MSAgents technology. 5 is not an upgrade but very different. I supposed you would have the sapi 4 technology on your system, because of the Win98SE but it might not have been installed. In the TDS directory is a file spchapi.exe which you might like to run to have TDS use any sapi 4 technology speech engine on your system it can find.
Normally such a problem should not have this effect of the gui not showing at all, as the other users just had TDS running but without sound, till they did the things from the TDS-4 thread.
http://www.security-pro.co.uk/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=dcstds;action=display;num=1013437821
But one never knows, maybe you find some other useful advices which might help you.
Further i don't suppose any of your popup-blockers would cause this.
Although my blocked popups cause IE to be about disfunctional as with each block it tries to send another error report to MS.
But none of my popup blockers till now ever blocked TDS from showing up, nor my firewall, nothing of the kind.......