OT EQ5 file problems

Sounds like the 'association' to the program has gone missing.

Try right clicking on the file, and select 'open with'... the select "choose program" and browse your hard drive and select the EQ5 executable. If memory serves there is a selection to 'open files with this program from now on' or something similar.

--Irene

I installed that MS Windows XP security update yesterday on my laptop, so I tried double clicking on a PJ5 file and encountered the same error. I only have EQ5 (not EQ6) installed on my laptop. Based on the error message, it looked to me as if a command line argument was not being passed correctly, so I did the following to fix it ...

1) Opened Windows Explorer and selected the "Tools -> Folder Options..." menu item. 2) Selected the "File Types" tab. 3) Selected the PJ5 file type. 4) Clicked the "Advanced" button towards the bottom of that dialog window. 5) Clicked the "Edit..." button. 6) In the "Application used to perform action:" text box: a) If not already there, put double quote marks around the EQ5 command, b) Put double quote marks around the argument (%1 is the argument). If you installed EQ5 in the standard place, then it should look like the following: "C:\Program Files\Electric Quilt Company\EQ5\EQ5.exe" "%1" 7) Click the "OK" button 8) Click the "OK" button 9) Click the "Close" button

I h> I've visited the new EQ forums, but another member's solution didn't help.=

=2E.. portion snipped

I did that too, but it didn't work. Turns out that Microsoft Windows Update KB943460 was the problem. Electric Quilt could no longer read folder names or filenames with spaces. All the information about it was in the EQ-Forums but not all in one location.

I had deleted the update but it seemed to have no effect. If I had been sitting here watching every thing on my screen, I would have noticed that the update was automatically installed again when I rebooted the computer.

So I changed my Automatic Updates to "notify me but don't automatically download or install." Sure enough, I rebooted and the auto-update icon appeared. This time there was a window where I could make a choice. I chose to never be reminded about that particular update again!

I'm a Happy Double-Clicker again!

Have I mentioned lately how awed I am by the breadth of knowledge here on the ng?

Thanks Bev - works fine now. Wasn't a big problem to me as I don't use EQ much anymore, but nice to be able to double click again if I want.

Thanks. I hadn't heard of Electric Quilt either. It sounds interesting.

DH is happy to have a look, which means he needs some specifics, which you need to use other applications to get hold off, the application to use to get these is at

will give him the information he needs to attempt to figure out what is going wrong!

He says "download it, run it just before you try to open a file (if it offers to extract it, don't extract, select run and if anything objects, just agree), running the application starts logging what is happening, open the EQ5 file that is causing you problems, then go back to the application and stop it (click on the magnifying glass and it should change to having a red cross), now save the log, either by File and Save, or the disc icon. Then email the results to me at annekh23 at yahoo dot co dot uk"

The other option he has if he can't help this way is he is able to give you a phone number to access support that isn't publicly available.

Cheers Anne

OK, ignore my other response, but DH is going to follow up this number and what got changed that broke it, they don't send out the fixes for their own pleasure, they are often because they fix security loopholes, so they want to know if their fixes are causing problems, because they don't want people moaning when their computers get attacked because they didn't use the fixes! XP fixes are all handled in India at the mo and they do have to pick up the pieces from time to time unfortunately!

Anne

Thank your husband for his offer of help. I had trouble with all filenames with spaces and with even the folder name "My EQ5" because it has a space in it.

Turns out the problem was a Microsoft Windows Update -- KB943460. Folks on the EQ Forums had the solution, just not all the pieces of info under the same forum topic. I also needed to make sure I had auto-updates turned off.

Of course, there is still the question as to why that particular update would effect EQ5 in that way. But I won't be pursuing that at this time. Must get some schoolwork done and prepare for a formal observation by the principal this week.

My email to Microsoft was just blown off. They said it was an EOM (DELL) problem. Sure don't know how they determined that! I wrote back with the solution that quilters had found and told Microsoft, "Shame on you!" Microsoft sounded like my 4th graders -- always someone else's fault and taking no responsibility.

Sounds like your husband is great with follow-up -- thank you!! I'm just wondering what other problems some of the other so-called updates are causing. I know Microsoft has no way to test its patches with every kind of software package! I used to be manager of a team that supported software developers for software for the old INS. Our test lab was a busy place. But of course the developers all had standard desktop configurations, and no one at the INS was supposed to install anything other than what was on the standard image on their workstations.

He's looked up this particular number and it seems like the space could be an issue created by this fix, not an EQ5 issue, but without having EQ5 we can't be 100% sure. Either way he's definitely going to be following it up on Monday. Updates like this are put out for security reasons, this particular one is to stop remote code execution that can change a registry key, so it's a pretty important one.

I realise it's very frustrating, but if you're going to turn of auto updates, you need to be prepared to take the time to check every update to see if you do need it and that's such a difficult thing to be sure of, wise online behaviour might help protect you, as might some features of virus protection software, but unfortunately if it's a problem with the operating system, which this one is, the protection can really only come from fixing that error in the operating system.

I quizzed him over what one "should" do in a situation like this, because MS really do want to know about this kind of problem, because though the problem to you was not being able to open a file, to them, the problem is if many people don't have this update because it caused things not to work and then someone exploits that, they get in trouble. So what apparently you should do when you find something like this is call one of the free phone support numbers, which are unfortunately rather frustrating. You don't need to to that now because he's got the number and a bug report will go in first thing tomorrow.

Cheers Anne

WOW! Our very own tech support! Where should we send the check?? :-)

See my other response about the phone system, but whether the phone system is any better than the email system I don't know. It seems like first line support isn't that great, but possibly no better or no worse than any other company. It is their responsibility if they send out a fix that breaks stuff. Problem is, it's a big company, support is completely separate and development is separate from fixing things. The fixing things group is actually fairly small and they have difficulty getting themselves heard, they keep trying to implement thing that will make safer, more secure code etc.

Unfortunately updates do cause problems for the exact reasons you say, conversely no updates cause far more problems. You probably know from your own background that support isn't where you put your top workers! Same with testing and to a lesser extent bug fixing, for many a job in one of those areas is a way into the company and a number of them move into other areas in the company after a fairly short time.

Cheers Anne

If I'm not going to use my PC for a few hours in the daytime I put it in "stand by." If I'm going to be gone most of the day I just shut it off.