Occasional failure to load

[DougSilver]

I should have posted this ages ago but I have problems with Sidekick 2.0 (and even Sidekick 98) loading up sometimes. I have been using Sidekick since the earliest Windows days (probably starting with Windows 3.1) and I think this startup problem started when I had moved up to Windows XP.

What happens is that sometimes, when I try to start Sidekick the logo comes up but then nothing. If I look at Windows task manager I can see that ntvdm.exe, wowexec.exe, and sidekick.exe are suddenly listed but nothing happens so I have to kill ntvdm.exe and try again. When this first started happening was after I installed SystemSuite and I was generally able to solve the problem by unloading SystemSuite prior to running Sidekick. But the failure to load still occasionally happens.

I assume there is some other program running that occasionally causes a conflict. At the worst what I need to do is restart Windows and then run Sidekick.

Does anyone else have this intermittent problem?

Thanks,

Doug

 

[james33]

Dear DougSilver,

Hi again Doug it looks like a reunion with the next post from Rich224422 all the 'Senior' users in one place briefly.

With regard to the seize up, yes I do too, but there again we so rarely reboot these days it isn't such a bad idea to do it occasionally just reminds you of the old days.
No I don't have any particular answers on that one either I am sure it differs for each User / Computer.

Take care

Regards Jim
Check the FAQ area of this Forum for answers (If there are any FAQs!) , it could save you a lot of time and effort! Good Luck!

 

[DougSilver]

Hi James,

Yes--we old dogs die hard. As I mentioned, the very first time I started having the hang-on-start problems was probably when I was still running Windows 2000 but updated Avanquest Systemsuite (basically a bunch of utilities that are packaged together) from version 9 to 10. There are 2 processes that start with SystemSuite--mxtask.exe and mxtask2.exe. I found that if I ended those processes, Sidekick would start just fine.

Since then I have upgraded to XP and am now using this computer in a company on their network, which also loads in an unloadable network based virus scanner. I also run a lot of other stuff now like Outlook, a dual-monitor utility, etc. Consequently, when the hang-on-start happens I have had less luck getting Sidekick to load so generally have to log off and then log on again.

Frankly, one of the only reasons I stick with Sidekick is the plethora of cardlog notes I have for each of my contact cards. These are very useful to me and sometimes go back several years. Even though there are many PIMS out there now that are more robust and slicker, there would be no easy way to get all of that free-form cardlog data into a new program.

The one real deficiency I have found with Sidekick is the inability to have a "nested" card structure. That is have a single card for a particular company and then have sub-entries for each of the contacts within that company, rather than have a bunch of separate contact cards.

Nevertheless, I will probably be sticking with my old creaky Sidekick since it basically serves the purpose.


Doug

 

[james33]

Dear Doug
The Cardlogs are not the most secure as there is a limit to the amount of text in them.
If you create a Folder on the root of the C:\ Drive called NOTES you could save text files in the folder and then save the path to them in a field in Sidekick and you can double click on the field and highlight the path copy it Ctrl+C and then use Winkey+R and then paste the path into the Run box press enter and open the text file. There would then be no limit to what you could put in the file and even if you swapped programs you would still have the data accessible.

Other than that how many companies do you deal with?
Could you not have a cardfile for each company or probably better still have 1 cardfile and sort that cardfile by company and then by department then by person and then you can duplicate cards with the company info and department for each person but you have probably already done that!!!
good luck anyway
Jim

Regards Jim
Check the FAQ area of this Forum for answers (If there are any FAQs!) , it could save you a lot of time and effort! Good Luck!

 

[DougSilver]

James--your idea of creating a separate Notes folder/directory is something I had not thought of this sounds pretty slick. Maybe I will experiment with that.

RE: the cardfiles--I probably should have created many more than I have done. Basically, I really only have 2 or 3 main ones that I use. One is called Clients and another is called Prospects. Within each of these I have the main sort field as Company--some companies end up with one or two main contacts but others have 8 or more. I guess that once a Company had several contacts, I should have formed a separate cardfile for that company. Of course I can still do this but nesting would have been a slick feature. I believe ACT! (even the early versions) had this type of structure where you could enter multiple contacts for a single company.

Doug