First Aid 97 crashes Office, but there’s a fix

Archived Articles, General

Question: Every time I open Microsoft Word 97, the program First Aid 97 interrupts with the following message: “General Protection Fault, Application: Winword.Exe, Description: This application has performed an illegal operation.” How do you solve this problem? I do not have any problem opening the other Office 97 programs. I tried to re-set all my RAM memory, but no luck. I also bought the Windows 98 upgrade, hoping that it will solve the problem, but no luck either. –V.A.

Answer: There’s a known problem with CyberMedia First Aid 97 and Office 97 applications. According to a Cybermedia help technician, Microsoft updated a series of DLL files in its Office products and First Aid 97 choked on them. All is not lost, though. There is a simple fix, but first some background.

When the error occurs and you choose Details on the dialogue box, you may see one of the following scintillating messages:

  • (Program) caused an invalid page fault in module GDI32.DLL at 0137:BFF3191C.
  • (Program)caused an invalid page fault in module KERNEL32.DLL at 0137:BFF3191C.
  • (Program)caused an access violation fault in module GDI32.DLL at 0137:BFF3191C.
  • caused an access violation fault in module SIWDLL32.DLL.
  • (Program)caused an invalid page fault in module QD98.DLL.

Note that (Program) is replaced with the name of the actual program that just blew up.

Before we get to the good stuff, here’s another laundry list of what might be affected:

  • Any of the Office 97 programs
  • FrontPage 97 or 98
  • Microsoft Greetings Workshop, versions 1.x and 2.x
  • Microsoft Picture It!, versions 1.0, 2.0
  • Microsoft Creative Writer for Windows, version 2.0
  • Microsoft Project 98
  • Microsoft Publisher 98

The heart of this problem lies with Build 400 of CyberMedia First Aid 97, though some users have also reported problems with Build 401. A build number is used to track how many times the program was compiled when it was being developed. So Build 400 would refer to the 400th time that the programmers ran the computer code through a compiler. A compiler is program that turns raw programming code into machine language, which is the actual binary file that a computer can run. Now that we all know what a build is and that Build 400 (and possibly Build 401) is the problem, how do we know which build we have?

Here are a few steps you can take to figure that out:

  1. Insert the First Aid 97 compact disc into your CD drive.
  2. When the CyberMedia First Aid 97 Setup dialog box appears, click Explore this CD.
  3. On the View menu in Windows Explorer, click Details.
  4. Locate the file Setup.exe. Look at the date and time in the Modified column.

The time in the Modified column tells you what build of First Aid 97 your CD contains. If it’s 4:00 AM, you’ve got Build 400. If it’s 4:01 AM, it’s Build 401. The times 4:02 AM and 4:03 AM refer to Build 402 and 403. An update is available to fix the glitch.