Windows 3.1 Error loading atmsys.drv

[PCHomepage]

After replacing the clock IC in an old PC with Windows 3.1 (Award v4.5 BIOS), Windows will not load. It boots to DOS, gives the Windows splash screen, then exits back to DOS with "Error loading atmsys.drv". I suspect that it is to do with the BIOS having reverted to the default settings but I am not sure what to change to fix it and am running out of time as have to catch a plane in the morning and won't be back for months! I've not worked on Windows 3.1 for decades so does anyone here have any idea what to do? Thank you in advance.

 

[flyboytim]

ATMSYS.DRV is the driver for the Adobe Type Manager, often installed with old wordprocessors like WordPerfect to give better font rendering. The ATM installer incorrectly edits the Windows system files.

The problem is probably in the system.ini file, which loads at Windows startup - IIRC, it is in the c:\windows folder., if you edit this file in DOS using edit.com (at the c:\> prompt, type edit c:\windows\system.ini), there may be a line like:

system.drv=atmsys.drv

If so edit this to:

system.drv=system.drv

and save the file

While still in edit.com, open win.ini, and if you find:

adobekey=adobekey.drv
adobemse=adobemse.drv

place a semi-colon ( at the beginning of these two lines to comment them out. This makes the computer ignore the code in the lines:

;adobekey=adobekey.drv
;adobemse=adobemse.drv

Also comment out any lines beginning with the text softfonts=.

Wouldn't it be great if you could fix Windows 8.1 just using a text editor?

 

[PCHomepage]

Thank you. I tried that earlier this afternoon but then got an error loading user.exe. Since the system clock chip was just replaced today and these issues were not happening before, I adjusted the memory settings in the BIOS which solved it. Unfortunately I did not document what I did.

 

[flyboytim]

well done!