WW 5.6.6 window error on Win 98

My son says that the new 5.6.6 WW is too big for his 800x600 Windows 98 system’s screen. Even at his max resolution of 1024x768 its too big and can not be resized.

WW’s window has never been a standard window. It can not be resized by dragging the top and left hand edges like a standard window. Can this be fixed?

Ed</font id=“blue”></font id=“size2”>

Well, anything is possible, but it doesn’t make sense to put all of that work into an update just to satisfy one Weather Watcher user.

The Weather Watcher interface should easily fit within an 800x600 area, when using unaltered display settings. I have seen cases where the Weather Watcher interface was blown up much larger than it should have been. That sounds like this might be the case for you son.

Perhaps deleting the following registry keys and restarting Weather Watcher will solve this issue:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\Weather Watcher\Misc\IfaceHeight

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\Weather Watcher\Misc\IfaceWidth

I told him to uninstall it, will that delete the Registry settings?

Once upon a time you revised the sequence of the Options popup menu items to be more “windows standard” yet you don’t care about WW’s window being non-standard. Why is that?

Ed</font id=“blue”></font id=“size2”>

quote:
[i]Originally posted by EdP[/i]
I told him to uninstall it, will that delete the Registry settings?
That should work.
quote:
[i]Originally posted by EdP[/i] Once upon a time you revised the sequence of the Options popup menu items to be more "windows standard" yet you don't care about WW's window being non-standard. Why is that?
Why are there only 24-hours in a day? [8D]
quote:
Why are there only 24-hours in a day?
So people will learn to prioritize. [:D]

Anyways, uninstalling (which left the WW folder and skins subfolders intact!) and reinstalling appears to have resolved the screen problem. Not sure how or why they got messed up in the 1st place.

Ed</font id=“blue”></font id=“size2”>

quote:
[i]Originally posted by EdP[/i]
[quote] Anyways, uninstalling (which left the WW folder and skins subfolders intact!) and reinstalling appears to have resolved the screen problem.
The uninstaller only removes items that were installed by the setup program. I believe this is the norm for uninstallers.
quote:
The uninstaller only removes items that were installed by the setup program. I believe this is the norm for uninstallers.

Interesting. So where do the Classic and Splendid and etc Forecasts and Interface skins come from? There were also files in the WW folder’s root but I didn’t pay enough attention to them to say what they were.

BTW Speaking of norms, do you want me to look up the IE API specs and find out what parms control the resizing of the window for you?

Ed</font id=“blue”></font id=“size2”>

quote:
[i]Originally posted by EdP[/i]
So where do the Classic and Splendid and etc Forecasts and Interface skins come from?
They are installed by Weather Watcher. If the setup program installed them, your skins would be overwritten each time you installed a new version of Weather Watcher.
quote:
[i]Originally posted by EdP[/i]
BTW Speaking of norms, do you want me to look up the IE API specs and find out what parms control the resizing of the window for you?
What will I do with that information?
quote:
[i]Originally posted by Mike Singer[/i]
They are installed by Weather Watcher.
Exactly. Thus the uninstall should remove them.
quote:
[i]Originally posted by Mike Singer[/i]
If the setup program installed them, your skins would be overwritten each time you installed a new version of Weather Watcher.
And that's exactly what the WW install does. For example, the 5.6.6 install overwrote the 5.6.5 install of the Splendid wtp files and I assume all the images and etc also.

If someone modified a Splendid file then yes it would and should get overwritten with each update. To prevent that simply install them into a new folder name and/or back them up before installing an upgrade.

Maybe the uninstall needs an option for a repair uninstall and a complete uninstall. A complete uninstall would remove everything where as the repair one would leave various files around like now.

quote:
[i]Originally posted by Mike Singer[/i]
What will I do with that information?
Use it to tweak WW.exe's code to allow the WW IE window to open like a normal Windows window with drag & drop resizing on the top and left edges. If the Map Viewer is based on the IE API just look at how it's coded. They seem to behave like normal windows.

Ed</font id=“blue”></font id=“size2”>

quote:
[i]Originally posted by EdP[/i]
quote:
[i]Originally posted by Mike Singer[/i]
They are installed by Weather Watcher.
Exactly. Thus the uninstall should remove them.
You are totally missing the boat here... it pulled away from the dock about 3 hours ago. Weather Watcher and the Weather Watcher Setup are two different programs. What exactly are you missing?
quote:
[i]Originally posted by EdP[/i]
Use it to tweak WW.exe's code to allow the WW IE window to open like a normal Windows window with drag & drop resizing on the top and left edges. If the Map Viewer is based on the IE API just look at how it's coded. They seem to behave like normal windows.
The WW.exe's window is not an IE window. I am not going to go into the specifics, but I can tell you this idea will not work.
quote:
[i]Originally posted by EdP[/i]
So where do the Classic and Splendid and etc Forecasts and Interface skins come from?
quote:
[i]Originally posted by Mike Singer[/i] They are installed by Weather Watcher. If the setup program installed them, your skins would be overwritten each time you installed a new version of Weather Watcher.
quote:
[i]Originally posted by EdP[/i]
Exactly. Thus the uninstall should remove them.
quote:
[i]Originally posted by Mike Singer[/i]
You are totally missing the boat here... it pulled away from the dock about 3 hours ago. Weather Watcher and the Weather Watcher Setup are two different programs. What exactly are you missing?
So Weather Watcher installs the skins' folders and subfolders and images and wtp files and etc rather than Weather Watcher Setup? Oh really!! And here all I thought Weather Watcher did was create the html files. Wow, no wonder weather updates take so long. [:)]

My boat may have left but your’s never made it out of dry dock. [:D]

Weather Watcher Setup creates and populates the skins folders. You don’t have to trust me on this, or even look at the code. Rename your current Weather Watcher folder to something like Weather Watcher Backup, run your Weather Watcher Setup program then look at the newly created Weather Watcher Folder. Do you see a skins folder? Do you see stuff in it?

IMO The uninstall should remove everything the install/Setup created. And in the case of WW it should remove the alerts and html files also.

But don’t feel bad, you’re in good company. MANY windows apps leave crap behind when they are uninstalled, your’s is by no means unique in that regard.

quote:
[i]Originally posted by Mike Singer[/i]
quote:
[i]Originally posted by EdP[/i]
Use it to tweak WW.exe's code to allow the WW IE window to open like a normal Windows window with drag & drop resizing on the top and left edges. If the Map Viewer is based on the IE API just look at how it's coded. They seem to behave like normal windows.
The WW.exe's window is not an IE window. I am not going to go into the specifics, but I can tell you this idea will not work.
[?] [?] [?] I thought WW.exe's window was an IE window. If I RIGHT click on it I get the IE menu of options such as Add to Favorites, View Source, etc.

Ed</font id=“blue”></font id=“size2”>

quote:
[i]Originally posted by EdP[/i]
Weather Watcher Setup creates and populates the skins folders. You don't have to trust me on this, or even look at the code.
No offense intended, but I wrote the program. That said, I know how it works [:)]

The Weather Watcher Setup creates a “Skins_New” folder.

quote:
[i]Originally posted by EdP[/i]
I thought WW.exe's window was an IE window. If I RIGHT click on it I get the IE menu of options such as Add to Favorites, View Source, etc.
The WW.exe includes an embedded IE window. The entire window is not an IE window though. The window is an actual Windows window... it's just set up a little differently due to the skinning feature.
quote:
[i]Originally posted by EdP[/i] IMO The uninstall should remove everything the install/Setup created. And in the case of WW it should remove the alerts and html files also.

But don’t feel bad, you’re in good company. MANY windows apps leave crap behind when they are uninstalled, your’s is by no means unique in that regard.


</font id=“quote”></blockquote id=“quote”>Just to chime in here, my feeling is that an uninstaller should simply have a checkbox “delete settings?” or even “remove ALL files?” and have the user decide to remove them or not.

Not that I’ve ever uninstalled WW :slight_smile:

quote:
[i]Originally posted by Mike Singer[/i]
No offense intended, but I wrote the program. That said, I know how it works [:)]

The Weather Watcher Setup creates a “Skins_New” folder.


</font id=“quote”></blockquote id=“quote”>
!! So it does. (took me a while to set up a test machine) And it populates it with html files from 2004! It also starts WW.exe which then apparently has to finish the install process.

From a design point of view this seems convoluted. The installer should do all of the installation and WW should concentrate on displaying the weather data. I think this would make WW smaller, faster and easier to maintain.

Regardless, since WW is involved in the install process the uninstall function needs to include those aspects of the install that it performs in addition to WW Setup’s.

quote:
[i]Originally posted by Mike Singer[/i]
The WW.exe includes an embedded IE window. The entire window is not an IE window though. The window is an actual Windows window... it's just set up a little differently due to the skinning feature.
Oh! Who knew? [:)]

Ed</font id=“blue”></font id=“size2”>

quote:
[i]Originally posted by EdP[/i]
Regardless, since WW is involved in the install process the uninstall function needs to include those aspects of the install that it performs in addition to WW Setup's.
In a perfect world, this would make sense. There are people who always uninstall Weather Watcher before installing a new version. If the uninstaller deleted the entire Weather Watcher program folder, those users would lose all of their skins, settings, etc.

When I make decisions, I do what I believe is going to benefit the most people. While this solution might be the best thing for you, it’s not going to be the best thing for thousands of other users.

Well, your heart’s in the right place Mike which is why we all like you. [:)]

However, I content that the number of people that install new versions over the top of the old one is probably 70%. Of the remaining 30%;
33% think an uninstall means simply deleting the WW icon off the desktop,
33% think an uninstall means deleting the folder WW from the hd and thus are aware they will loose the changes they made in the folder and backup their changes and folders before doing the uninstall,
and the final 34% know what an uninstall is and what it will do and backup their changes and folders before doing the uninstall.

So the number of people that you are trying to protect from themselves is quite small verses the number of people that would benefit from a proper uninstall. [;)][:)]

Ed</font id=“blue”></font id=“size2”>

quote:
[i]Originally posted by EdP[/i]
So the number of people that you are trying to protect from themselves is quite small verses the number of people that would benefit from a proper uninstall. [;)][:)]
Very true. However, the current uninstall method does not hurt anyone in any way. It's just takes an extra step to completely remove all of the Weather Watcher files.

Besides… why would anyone want to get rid of Weather Watcher? [;)]