Any ancient Windows gurus out there? Runtime 114 error

[scottmandue]

Calling Gandalf... Gandalf needed on isle 5...

I work at a science museum, one of my many thankless jobs is propping up ancient computers and keeping them running with toothpicks and bubble gum.

No, no, no, I can't upgrade the operating system or the hardware because we have no money... and the original application was written in Visual Basic (C++), compiled and installed fifteen years ago with Win95.

At least once a day we get a "runtime error 114", right now the resolve is to go out on the floor and reboot. Searching the Internet I get something about the error is caused by "a missing or not registered DLL file".

I also see "free upload of registry repair tools" and I am Internet savvy enough to be totally paranoid about that.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks!

[HardDrive]

So your science museum needs new computers. How many computers? What does the app do? Are you a non-profit?

[scottmandue]

Mkay, imagine yourself in a parallel universe... we will call it "museumland"

In 1999 Phase one opened in museumland and they hired me to keep things running, at that time HP donated a truckload of computers with Win 95.

In 2010 phase two opened, the new kiosks that have XP...
Scott to the all powerful beings upstairs "hey, can we get new computers for phase one?"

"What? Did someone hear something? New computers? Why, those old computers are working just fine... we don't have time to listen to your whining, we have to start planning for phase three! Now go back to your dungeon and make some diamonds out of turds!"

Anyway, even if we had new computers someone would have to write new code (we don't have any programmers on staff, we contract all that out) and that costs $$$ we don't have.

So my job is to keep the antique computers on life support.

Are nonprofit? Yes and no... the building is owned by the State the exhibits and all that are owned by a nonprofit foundation.

[John Rogers]

Well you say the application was written in Visual Basic but then also say C++ ? Unless part of the code was C++ and rolled into the overall VB program, the chances of finding the answer are slim? If you had the program source code which ever language it is I could take a look at it as I taught both languages for many years. Generally what will happen is an operating system level DLL or other code module will get updated and the program can not interact with it correctly. Possibly someone did an update (you ?) and that would have to be undone.

A final thought, can you post a screen snapshot of the error message box and also one of the Windows task manager to show what is running at the time of the crash? Finally do you know if anything else was running or just started when the crash occurs?

[Shifter]

Hmm. What is running at startup? Maybe something using up all the ram, or lack of hard drive space?

With a custom app, it may be anything.

Do you or anyone you know have a contact at a high school or local college IT program? Sounds like it might be a perfect graduate program for someone...

[Vipergrün]

Check system resources when the error happens. Does it say which .dll is missing? Perhaps you can try to re-register the .dll with regsvr32? Dunno.

[jriera]

That error 114 (if I recall correctly) is an 'out of memory'/page fault/not enough resources type of error .. that is why when you reboot does not happen again. if it was a DLL will happen 'earlier'

[id10t]

I'd try running the app under Wine ... would probably work very well

[scottmandue]

I have tripled the RAM on all the computers, they are not nor never have been connected to the Internet or updated.

I apologize for my ignorance... I thought Visual Basic and C++ were related... I believe that app is written in Visual Basic

We have six old computers on their own tiny LAN.
Host computer has a camera and a trackball, you take a picture, then click on one of three buttons "look scary", "look distorted", "look artistic".
The host then applies the appropriate photo shop filers and the picture slides down to computer 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 changing the filter each time.

We may have VB on an old computer that the mother board died, I am thinking of trying to find that hard drive and see is I can get VB running so we can look at the code.

We are across the street from USC, but seriously doubt we can get a student excited about working with Win95 and VB.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by id10t

I'd try running the app under Wine ... would probably work very well

With your help I got Mint installed on my home computer.

I have considered installing a flavor of Linux and running it but I'm more of a hardware guy and that is pressing the envelope for my tiny brain.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by id10t

I'd try running the app under Wine ... would probably work very well

I already have Mint on a thumb drive... should I try that? Or is Wine a different animal?