Re: a harmless notebook crashes Windows 7: who else had it?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg107335] Re: a harmless notebook crashes Windows 7: who else had it?
- From: David Bailey <dave at removedbailey.co.uk>
- Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 02:47:30 -0500 (EST)
- References: <hkj8u5$dqp$1@smc.vnet.net>
John Fultz wrote: > If Windows is blue-screening, which seems to be what you're saying, then it's > not Mathematica's fault...at least not directly. No regular application has the > privilege to do anything that would cause Windows to blue-screen. A blue-screen > happens when privileged code running in core parts of the operating system > fails, and the operating system is unable to contain the crash. Typically, it's > a result of a bug in Windows itself, or a bug in a device driver which Windows > is using. It could also, as you've already speculated, be the result of > malware. > > That being said, I can toss out one speculation. We've seen a very small number > of cases where the presence of the Mathematica5 fonts on the system can cause > certain applications (not just Mathematica) to trigger a blue-screen. We > haven't gotten to the bottom of this, yet...and it's only been reported to us by > three users. I personally suspect that there's a flaky video driver behind the > problem, but I don't have the evidence to back up such an assertion, yet. > > On the off-chance that the problem you're seeing is the same problem, try > following this procedure... > > * Quit all copies of Mathematica. > * Open the Fonts control panel. Make copies of all of the Mathematica5 fonts, > then remove them from the Fonts list. > * Reboot. Open the Fonts control panel again and verify that no Mathematica5 > fonts are there. > * Launch Mathematica and perform the procedure which reproduces the blue-screen. > * You may see some characters which display incorrectly on the screen. That's > okay. > > If this makes the problem go away, then I'd really like to get some more > information from you, and I can offer you some practical advice for working > around the problem. Feel free to email me directly with the results of your > test. > > If that doesn't help, then you should reinstall the Mathematica5 fonts. They > can be found in the installation directory in > SystemFiles\FrontEnd\Fonts\Windows. Send me a copy of the crash report that > Windows creates, and I may be able to suggest other things you can try. > > -John > > > On Fri, 5 Feb 2010 07:13:30 -0500 (EST), Alexei Boulbitch wrote: >> *Dear Community, >> >> I have recently installed Mathematica 7.0.1.0 (the Premier Service - >> related Home Edition) on my laptop (ASER Aspire 4810TG with Windows 7 >> Home Edition). I faced a problem that started to show up right after the >> installation of Mathematica: >> >> Windows crashes always, if I open a certain notebook and scroll it for >> few seconds. The notebook in question is a draft of my lecture and >> contains mainly a text (e.g. text cells) and some short and very >> primitive pieces of code. To give few examples of the code from that >> notebook look here: >> >> *1 - 3 \[Nu] /. \[Nu] -> 3/5 >> >> *or here: >> >> *f = (T*c)/\[CapitalNu]*Log[c/(\[CapitalNu]*E)] + >> B*c^2 + \[DoubleStruckCapitalC]*c^3; >> \[Mu]p = \[CapitalNu]*\!\( >> \*SubscriptBox[\(\[PartialD]\), \(c\)]\ f\) // FunctionExpand // Expand >> Posm = c*\!\( >> \*SubscriptBox[\(\[PartialD]\), \(c\)]\ f\) - f // Expand >> >> *or here >> >> *Panel@Style[ >> "Some text to be highlighted", 16, Blue, Bold] >> >> *There are some other pieces of a code of the same type in that >> notebook. The code seems to be quite harmless. However, Windows crashes >> and restarts. Another thing that crashes Windows in the same manner is >> launching the Outlook Express. This also started to happen first after >> the installation of Mathematica. >> >> Other notebooks as well as other applications seem to work well. I >> checked for viruses with NOD32, seems to be no of them. The same >> "criminal" notebook is running fine on another machine with Windows XP >> and the same Mathematica version. On this machine I did not face any >> problem with this version of Mathemactica (at least, not yet). >> >> My question: >> Did somebody of you already experience things of this type, and what did >> you do in this case? >> >> Best regards, Alexei >> >> * > > > I wonder what version of Mathematica was in use before 7 was installed, because I remember a problem similar to this when I first installed 6.0. The problem turned out to be a bug in the Dell screen driver, and upgrading this from their website fixed the problem. David Bailey http://www.dbaileyconsultancy.co.uk