Notes startup problem with Windows 95 clients

[Bostik]

We run Notes 5.0.5 on site an have Win 95, NT and 2000 clients.
About 6 months ago, *all* the Win 95 clients started having a Notes startup problem. When Notes is launched, the splash-screen appears, disappears and that's it - notes does not run.
We found that if we disconnect the network drive pointing to our apps server, Notes will work fine. Mapping any other server to this drive letter, or the apps server to any other drive letter does not affect Notes.
I know this sounds a bit weird, but I cannot find anything in Notes.ini on the clients which points Notes to the Apps drive upon startup.
Are there any other files which Notes uses upon startup, and can I edit them or their corresponding registry keys to get Notes working on these clients?
I can't leave the Apps drive mapped to a different drive letter, as many apps use this drive for shared portions of their software.
Your help would be much appreciated!

 

[gamesman]

Ok, simple things first to check;

Are the target and start-in paths in the notes shortcuts valid, and not pointing to the apps server?

IS the .ini file in the correct location? generally c:\windows.

try renaming notes.ini to notes.old and attempt to start up notes. You Should get a new user startup, if not then there is either a badpath to the .ini file or an extra .ini file.

You mentioned Win2000. Are you using Active directory and if so, does it contain Notes files that may be interfering with the win95 machines?

Having checked all those, I've seen similar problems many times (in R4) and the cause is a corruption in the .ini file from a previous crash or Ab-End of Notes. The only solution I know of is to do a quick reinstall of the client. It's not a complete reinstall. Simply look in the .ini file for a "Startup" entry which is usually set to 50-something or 20-something for remote users. If you change the entry to "0" (zero) and launch notes you'll be prompted for the user information and server again.

It's a pain if you have a lot of 95 users and again this was in R4 and you're using R5, but unless someone comes up with something better, it's worth a shot. Gamesman
jhughes@barbhosp.com
MT(ASCP), MCP, CIW, CNA