Who does this apply to?

Anyone using a Windows95/OSR2 and Solution System 2 or CaseBASE.

This applies to ANY VERSION of Solution System 2 or CaseBASE for DATIS.

Issues Covered

• An obscure bug in Windows95/OSR2 which causes the error message "this program has performed an illegal operation..." when Solution System 2 or CaseBASE attempts to run an external program, or submit to DATIS or MOH, run Wordperfect, run the Statistical Browser, or run the Query Tool.

Explanation and How to Fix

Doug Lee has authored a patch and a web page that addresses the COMMAND.COM file in OSR2.  This patch addresses the technical problem OSR2 has when executing the Execl() function in Dataflex (by Data Access Corporation) which is written in Borland C++, which apparantly is susceptible to this bug.  Read Dougs' explanation of the problem and his advice at his web page Windows 95 OSR2 COMMAND.COM patcher v1.00 (08/12/97).  ACSL recommends that you download and apply this patch if you are running OSR2 and experiencing the system error described.   ACSL's own testing indicates that Dougs' patch program is simple to run, reversable and doesn't seem to introduce any instabilities into DOS programs.

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

It appears that Microsoft may have made an unannounced change to newer copies of Windows95 OSR2's COMMAND.COM program, that when this patch is applied and the system is rebooted, Windows95 announces that the COMMAND.COM is corrupt and asks you to enter a path to the correct version.

NOTE: This patch can be applied to Windows 98 and Windows 98SE as well.  It cannot be applied to Windows NT.

Our advice is to ONLY apply this patch when necessary - for instance you get illegal page fault errors when performing a DATIS Submission or trying to do a backup, or run WordPerfect from CaseBASE.

We are currently trying to contact the author of this patch for advice. We recommend that you make a backup copy of COMMAND.COM on a disk BEFORE you run this patch until we resolve this problem.

Please note that this patch has not been endorsed by Microsoft or Data Access Corporation, and that you run this patch at your own risk.

It should be noted that ACSL reported this problem to both Data Access Corporation and Microsoft months ago, and received no response from Microsoft and no resolution from Data Access Corporation.  Thank you Doug for doing what both these two companies couldn't seem to or weren't willing to do.