Q131438: Mac Encarta 95: Read Me Contents
Article: Q131438
Product(s): Microsoft Home Multimedia Titles
Version(s): 1995 edition
Operating System(s):
Keyword(s):
Last Modified: 26-MAY-2001
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The information in this article applies to:
- Microsoft Encarta 95 The Complete Interactive Multimedia Encyclopedia for Macintosh
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SUMMARY
=======
The following is the complete text of the ReadMe file that comes with Microsoft
Encarta 1995.
MORE INFORMATION
================
Microsoft Encarta for Macintosh, 1995 Edition ReadMe File
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This ReadMe file contains information on the following topics:
1. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS FOR RUNNING ENCARTA '95
- What you need to run Encarta
2. MEMORY USE
- Encarta memory usage
3. PERFORMANCE
- Tips on how to increase Encarta's speed
4. COLOR CONFIGURATION AND SCREEN SIZES
- What makes Encarta look best
5. SOUND PROBLEMS
- Common problems playing sounds and how to fix them
6. WHERE ENCARTA PUTS FILES
- What folders are created and which files are copied by the
Installer
7. CUSTOM INSTALLATION
- Other options for installing Encarta
8. PRINTING FROM ENCARTA
- Possible printing problems and suggestions for printing
9. KNOWN PROBLEMS
- Known problems and suggestions to help you work around them
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1. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS FOR RUNNING ENCARTA '95
-------------------------------------------------
To install and run Encarta '95 you will need at least the following
minimum configuration:
A 68030 based Apple Macintosh Computer that supports a 13-inch
640x480 pixels) or larger monitor that can display 256 or more
colors
System 7.0 or later
At least 5 MB of random-access memory (RAM) with 4 MB available
At least 5 MB of available hard disk space
A CD-ROM drive
NOTE: It is highly recommended you run Encarta '95 on a Macintosh with
at least 8 MB of physical RAM. It is also recommended that you have at
least 16 MB free on your hard drive for Encarta's installation. If you
are running Encarta with only 5 MB of physical RAM, you will need to
turn on Virtual Memory. Refer to the Encarta & Memory ReadMe for more
information about using Virtual Memory.
In order to use Encarta '95, you must install the application and its
supporting files on your hard disk. The Installer program on the
CD-ROM installs the Encarta program to a new folder and adds any
necessary files and resources to the System folder on your hard disk.
NOTE: The installation process may require more than 5 MB hard disk
space on machines running System 7.0 or 7.0.1. This space is required
only during installation: after you restart, Encarta '95 will take as
little as 5 MB on your hard disk, depending on the installation option
you have selected. Under System 7 or 7.0.1, the installation program
must make a copy of your System file in order to install the fonts
required for Encarta '95. The extra copy of the System file is removed
when you restart your computer. If you encounter problems with this
installation, see section 7, CUSTOM INSTALLATION.
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2. MEMORY USE
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Encarta '95 needs a relatively large amount of your computer's system
memory (RAM) to display pictures and play sounds. It should run on
systems with 5 MB (5,120K) of RAM and at least 3.5 MB (3,584K)
available for Encarta. The InterActivities require 3,000 - 4,000 K
of available memory to run. You will need to have Virtual Memory
turned on to run Encarta on a machine with only 5MB of RAM. Refer
to the "Encarta & Memory ReadMe" document for advice about memory
usage.
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3. PERFORMANCE
---------------
If Encarta '95 seems to run slowly, interrupts sounds or film clips,
does not play sounds at all, does not allow you to enlarge images, or
is using incorrect fonts for text, here are the main things to check:
- If you are running on a Macintosh with low memory you may experience
performance problems refer to the document "Encarta & Memory ReadMe" for
advice about memory usage.
- If your Macintosh is using Virtual Memory, you may find that Encarta
'95 runs slowly. For best performance on machines with over 8 MB of
physical RAM, turn off Virtual Memory. To do this, open the Memory
control panel, choose the Virtual Memory Off option, and then restart
your computer. However, it is possible that you will require Virtual
Memory to run Encarta and one of the mini-applications together. See
the document "Encarta & Memory ReadMe" for more advice about Virtual
Memory.
- If you are using a slow CD-ROM drive, it may not be able to supply
information to the Macintosh at the speed required by the software.
There is no workaround for this problem. If you suspect a problem with
your CD drive, ensure that it is properly terminated and that its
software is properly installed. For more information on SCSI
termination, read your Macintosh or CD-ROM drive documentation, or ask
your Apple dealer.
- Encarta may run a bit faster if your machine is set to thousands of
colors (instead of 256 or millions). However, this will require more
memory than 256 colors. You can try setting your machine to thousands,
and see whether you experience any memory problems. To change your
color setting, select the Control Panels folder under the apple icon,
double-click the Monitors control panel and select the desired number of
colors.
- You can increase the performance of the InterActivities by copying the
applications from your Encarta CD to your hard drive. The applications
will run faster from your hard drive than they do from your CD. This
will, however, use more hard disk space than running them from the CD.
The InterActivities are located on the CD within the Programs folder
which is in the Encarta Files folder. When running InterActivities in
this fashion, the CD must be mounted.
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4. COLOR CONFIGURATION AND SCREEN SIZES
---------------------------------------
Encarta '95 requires that your monitor display 256 more colors.
Encarta '95 will run in 16-bit mode (thousands of colors) and 24-bit
mode (millions of colors). These video modes improve the appearance
of Encarta's photos and film clips; however, using 16-bit or 24-bit
video may alter Encarta's performance or reduce the amount of memory
available to Encarta. If you see low memory messages when running in
thousands or millions of colors, you can increase the memory
available to Encarta. Refer to the "Encarta & Memory ReadMe" document
for more details.
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5. SOUND PROBLEMS
-----------------
If there is no sound at all, first make sure that the sound level on
your Macintosh is set correctly. To set the sound level, use the
Sound Control Panel and experiment with the speaker volume setting
until you get a comfortable sound level. If you set the sound level
to maximum, you may hear sound distortion.
If your Macintosh is using Virtual Memory, you may find that sounds
are interrupted. When Virtual Memory is turned on, sounds are
sometimes placed on the hard disk rather than in RAM. For best sound
performance, turn off Virtual Memory. To do this, open the Memory
Control Panel, choose the Virtual Memory Off option, and then restart
the computer. It is possible however, that you will require Virtual
Memory to run Encarta or one of the mini-applications. See the
document "Encarta & Memory ReadMe" for more advice about Virtual
Memory.
In low memory situations, you may find that sounds will not load or
play. If you cannot get a sound to play and are sure that your sound
control panel is set correctly, or you are receiving error messages
when attempting to play sounds, please refer to the document
"Encarta & Memory ReadMe" for instructions on how to allocate more
memory for Encarta.
The sounds used in Encarta '95 are stored on the CD-ROM in a
compressed format. In order to be played, the sound must be read from
disk and decompressed. Older or slower Macintoshes such as the
Macintosh LCIII or the earlier Performa models may experience
interruptions in audio playback.
The slider on the audio controller is not updated as often while the
sound is playing on lower performance machines as it is on higher
performance machines. This will give the slider's movement a "choppy"
effect, and it may not reach the end of the bar by the time the sound
finishes.
Macintosh computers have built-in speakers. These speakers vary in
quality and loudness depending on which Macintosh you have. The
speaker quality has generally improved in later models.
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6. WHERE ENCARTA INSTALLER PUTS FILES
-------------------------------------
The Encarta Installer program creates folders and copies files to
several locations. When you install Encarta '95, the Installer program:
- Creates a folder on your hard disk called "Encarta '95" and copies the
following to it:
Microsoft Encarta '95 - the main Encarta application.
Encarta '95 Read Me - the document you are reading now.
Encarta & Memory - a Read Me document explaining memory issues
and troubleshooting.
Animation Launcher - used to run animations in low memory
situations.
Animation - a file used by Encarta in playing of animations.
Encarta Projector - Macromedia application that plays Director
movies.
SimpleText - a text editor that allows you to view the readme files.
Data Files - folder that contains data files needed by Encarta.
Microsoft System Information - folder with applications that may be
required if you need product support from Microsoft.
InterActivities - a folder containing aliases to the InterActivities
and MindMaze
- Creates a folder called "Encarta '95 Preferences" in your
System:Preferences folder
- Creates a folder called "Encarta '94 Preferences" in your
System:Preferences folder, this is created to enable Microsoft Works 4.0
to work together with Encarta '95. This folder will not be created if
Encarta '94 is already installed on your system.
- Copies QuickTime Powerplug to your System:Extensions folder, this is
only necessary for PowerMac systems, it can be removed from other
systems.
- Copies QuickTime 2.0, QuickTime Musical Instruments, and Sound Manager
to the System:Extensions folder (if needed), these are necessary to play
video and sound.
- Copies FIF Component to the System:Extensions folder, this is
necessary to load images from the CD
- Copies Apple Multimedia Tuner to the System:Extensions folder, this
allows the multimedia in Encarta to run properly.
- Copies Sound Manager Sound control panel to the System:Control Panels
folder (if needed).
- Copies Times, Arial, MS Reference, and Symbol fonts to System folder.
On System 7.0 and 7.0.1, these fonts are copied to the System suitcase.
On System 7.1 or higher these fonts are copied to the Fonts folder.
If you choose to switch disks before installing (to a hard disk that
is not your startup volume) you MUST RESTART YOUR MACINTOSH before
Encarta will run correctly. On System 7.0 and 7.0.1, installing to a
non-boot drive will not properly install the necessary fonts. It is
also possible that the installer will not install the program to a
non-boot drive on some systems. To resolve these problems, try
installing to your boot drive, then drag the Encarta '95 folder to
the desired drive.
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7. CUSTOM INSTALLATION
----------------------
For the majority of users, using the Easy Install provided in the
Installer program is the best way to install Encarta '95.
You may wish to perform a custom installation if you are running
System 7.0 or 7.0.1 and don't have the extra hard disk space needed
for installation. (See Section 1 for details.) You may also choose
custom install if you would like to save hard disk space, though this
will decrease Encarta's performance.
Custom installation allows you to a different option than the one
chosen by the installer as optimal for your system. You may also
choose custom install if you would like to save hard disk space.
To perform a custom installation of Encarta '95:
- Double-click the "Installer" icon on the Encarta '95 CD-ROM.
- Click the Customize button in the Installer dialog box.
- Choose an install option. You must know which system version you are
running, and choose the appropriate system option. If Easy Install
recommends Faster Encarta, you can save disk space by choosing either
Slower Encarta or CD-based Encarta. If Easy Install recommends Slower
Encarta, you do not have enough disk space available for Faster Install,
and can only choose Slower Encarta or CD-Based Encarta. If easy install
recommends CD-based Encarta, that is the only option that you can choose
without removing some files from your hard disk to provide more space.
Slower Encarta will provide slower performance than Faster Install, and
CD-based Encarta will provide the slowest performance of the three
options. The custom install section lists the disk space required for
each option.
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8. PRINTING FROM ENCARTA
------------------------
Encarta '95 does not offer an Advanced Printer Driver Options dialog.
If you have a printer that requires this dialog to change settings
(e.g. to change color or resolution settings), you must run another
application such as SimpleText and use that application's Page Setup
dialog to access the Advanced Printer Driver Options dialog.
Encarta '95 does not always print properly with Laserwriter version
7.x drivers. Problems you may see when printing with these driver
versions include:
a) Media items print in black and white instead of grayscale despite
proper printer settings.
b) Sections of text overlap other sections of text, and images within
the article text have black bars printed on the right side.
To solve these problems, we have provided a LaserWriter version 8.2.2
driver on the Encarta '95 CD. To install this driver on your system,
you must open your System Folder and open your Extensions folder. Open
the Installer Files folder on the Encarta '95 CD-ROM and open the
Laserwriter 8.2.2 folder. Drag the "LaserWriter 8" file into your
Extensions folder. Then drag the "Printer Descriptions" folder into your
extensions folder. If this folder already exists on your hard drive,
drag the contents of the Printer Descriptions folder from the CD into
the Printer Descriptions folder on your hard drive. Once you have copied
these files, select Chooser from the Apple menu. Locate and select the
Laserwriter 8 item in the upper left box within the Chooser. You may
need to scroll down to find this item. Select your printer in the
printer list box. Select Setup.
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9. KNOWN PROBLEMS
-----------------
- Encarta '95 may not launch on machines running QuickDraw GX version
1.0.1. If you are running system 7.5 with QuickDraw GX 1.0.1 and
experience problems launching Encarta, you will need to remove this
extension from the Extensions folder in your System folder or turn it
off with Extensions Manager before launching Encarta '95. An alternative
solution is to get the latest QuickDraw GX update from Apple and replace
version 1.0.1 with the new version.
- Virus protection software issues warnings during Encarta installation.
Some virus protection software may confuse the Installer program's
necessary actions with behaviors associated with a virus, possibly
disrupting the installation process. It is recommended that you disable
any virus protection software before installing Encarta, then re-enable
it after the installation.
- Screen saver software may conflict with installation. Some screen
savers, such as After Dark, are known to conflict with the installer.
Turn off your screen saver using the control panel before installing
Encarta.
- Non-Encarta disks don't eject. On some systems, when you launch
Encarta '95 with a non-Encarta '95 disc in the CD-ROM drive, the drive
will not eject that disc. To get around this problem: (1) Eject the disc
from the Finder by dragging it to the Trash, (2) Insert the Encarta '95
disc into the CD-ROM drive.
- Restarting from the Installer program may hang on some Macintosh
Performa models. This is a known problem with System 7.1P5 and earlier.
Apple recommends upgrading to 7.1P6 or later. To work around this
problem: (1) Turn your computer off by its power switch and wait 10 to
15 seconds, (2) Restart your computer.
- Dialog box warns you have an incorrect version of QuickTime or Sound
Manager installed. During installation, the Installer program checks
the versions of QuickTime and Sound Manager present on your machine and,
if necessary, replaces them with newer versions. However, the Installer
cannot remove older versions if you have renamed them. For example, if
you renamed an older version of QuickTime "My QuickTime," the Encarta
Installer would install a newer version of QuickTime, but would fail to
remove the older version. To fix this problem, manually remove the
renamed version(s) of these system components and restart your
Macintosh.
- Special or international characters are copied incorrectly to the
Clipboard. As a custom bitmap font, the MS Reference fonts do not map
special or international characters correctly to the Macintosh character
set. These characters appear as inappropriate or non-printing characters
when copied to an application such as SimpleText.
NOTE: Special characters appear and print correctly in MS Reference
fonts when printed from Encarta.
- PopChar control panel feature conflicts while running Encarta '95.
There is a conflict between G?nther Blaschek's PopChar control panel
(versions 2.3 through 2.6.2) and Encarta '95 that can lead to the
machine crashing when you select characters in the "More..." feature of
PopChar while Encarta is running. We recommend you avoid this feature of
PopChar while using Encarta.
- Microsoft Works may not properly launch or connect to Encarta. There
are a few possible solutions here. If Works launches Encarta, but
Encarta goes to the "title screen" rather than the correct article, you
need to go to "settings" under Encarta's "i" flyout menu, and remove the
checkmark from "Display Title screen when I start up Encarta". If Works
does not provide an option "Look up Reference..." in the "edit" menu
that connects you to Encarta, you need to re-install Encarta, which will
create an Encarta '94 Preferences folder. Works looks for this folder to
determine whether Encarta is present on your system.
- QuickKeys conflicts while running Encarta '95. The QuickKeys scrolling
macros that are installed by default by QuickKeys do not work correctly
within Encarta. In order for pressing {Home}, {End}, {Page Up}, or {Page
Down} to work correctly within Encarta, these QuickKeys macros will have
to be disabled or removed.
- Orbit, MindMaze, and animations crash using CacheOut control panel.
In these mini-applications, using the CacheOut control panel will result
in a system crash when running or quitting. We recommend you disable or
remove the CacheOut.
- If you have both Encarta '94 and Encarta '95 installed on your system,
you may experience a problem when running the animation launcher. If
while running the animation launcher, you select "Return to Encarta"
with the Encarta '95 CD in your drive, you will receive the error
message: "There is a problem starting Encarta: The Files cannot be
located. Make sure the Encarta CD-ROM disc is in the drive. If you still
have a problem, run the Installer again from the CD-ROM". This message
is being displayed by Encarta '94. The resolution for this problem is to
remove Encarta '94 from your hard drive. If you are also using Microsoft
Works, however, do not remove the Encarta '94 preferences folder from
your drive.
- If, when trying to launch one of the InterActivities or MindMaze you
get an error message that begins "There is not enough memory to start
this program", you should refer to the Encarta and Memory Readme for
advice on handling low memory situations.
Additional query words: kbhowto 1995 multi media multimedia multi-media readme.txt mac mmtitles kbmm
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Keywords :
Technology : kbHWMAC kbOSMAC kbHomeProdSearch kbEncartaSearch kbEncartaEnCyc1995Mac
Version : :1995 edition
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