When I got an alert telling me a script I re-compiled had changed, I clicked upon the Excluded icon like I was asked to do and then the over-large Excluder window overwrote part of the Alert window with a white panel and now it can’t be read correctly.
I’m on a 1680x1050 screen and yet that very large Excluder (and virtually empty) window is taking up almost half the screen? Does it need to be so large?
Surely it can work out how many icons is in it and size accordingly?
Sorry for the unhappiness … those screens that you’re seeing “corrupted” are actually SYSTEM “Message Boxes.” This is significant because it isn’t BOClean drawing those, it’s Windows itself! And any repaints of those screens is supposed to be handled by the system as far as those alerts go. Therefore, something’s flaky in the video driver there in preventing the screens from repainting. I see also that the fonts are somewhat squished and you’re using what looks like a Win98 “theme” from what I can see of the graphics there.
Because BOClean is designed to work with everything from Windows for Worlgroups 3.11 (win32s) all the way up to Vista, it does not support “themes” and depends on the system to handle all of that (which it normally does just fine) so about all I can offer is that your font and size settings and the video card you’re running are not getting along somehow or those screens would repaint any time you moved any of the windows on there.
What you MIGHT try is going into the executable properties for BOC427.exe and disable the themes settings for that and see it that helps … you shouldn’t need to do any of the “compatibility” settings … but somehow the screen settings you have for that system are preventing Windows itself from repainting its own dialogs and thus the problem you’re seeing … pretty impressive resolution you’re set for tho’ …
I’m using Windows XP Pro Sp 3. The graphics card is a boring ATi Radeon 7000 AGP card with a 22" LCD Widescreen monitor at 1680x1050.
I do not use fancy graphics on my desktop. They just slow Windows down IMHO.
I use the ‘Windows Classic style’ which probably put you off track. (:TNG)
I don’t see this problem with other Windows system panels in other programs.
Also any comment on why you make the Excluder window so massive?
not sure if this is the case but I had a friend with a problem exactly like this (not with BOClean though) And all he did was update his video card driver and the issue was fixed. so i’m not sure but it might be worth trying to either uninstall/reinstall the video card driver or update to a newer version driver if there is one.
GRRRrrrrrrrr. (:AGY) After writing up a lengthy, detailed reply for the third time since Friday, got this:
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and then this:
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I’ll write it all again and get back, but I’ll do it offline so I can at least have a copy of it before it blows up. GHODS, I hate using Aiyee. Firefox at least keeps the cache.
Have lost most of my original thoughts, but let me try to explain what’s going on again since the last thing I want is for anyone to be angry or upset about anything BOClean does - been that way for better than 11 years now. BOClean is designed to be compatible with every windows version all the way back to WFW 3.11 (as long as Win32s is installed since BOClean is a 32 bit app) … one program for everyone, and every time in the past where we’ve suggested dropping support for “older, obsolete versions of windows” there has been a strong public outcry accusing us of everything from sunspots to acne to “working for da man.”
So the code in the BOClean 4.xx versions is “one size fits all” and we’ve managed to support everything from WFW 3.11 through Vista by making the GUI stuff based on GUARANTEED “legacy kernel functions” rather than using the more exotic (and version dependent) “MFC” (“Microsoft Foundation Class”) libraries. Problem with using MFC is that Microsoft paints your code into a wall and there’s numerous versions of MFC which have different features, different offsets, and limit what you can do to specific versions of Windows. By using the “legacy kernel functions” it ensures that BOClean will work on ANY PC regardless of hardware or version.
The screens you have there which are “cut off” all use the system “MessageBox()” function. Google the “MessageBox” function call so you can see I’m telling the truth here. All MessageBox allows a program to do is send it a string to be displayed (the “message”) and which buttons you want displayed under the message. The function returns which button was pressed as a value from which you can branch to what to do with the results. The MessageBox function is controlled entirely by the system and there’s nothing you can do to modify it, force it to repaint or anything else other than “wait for the result.” That’s all. It’s up to the system, your hardware drivers and your video card to redraw the screens if covered by another object. Even if I was “Svengarlic the Magician” there’s nothing I can do to change that.
As to the size of the “excluder screen” it’s the same story - here, we’re using a “single document” call to a function called “DialogBox” and use “system defaults” for sizing since we didn’t want to write code to measure the size of the screen, resolution, font size and assume what is called “owner draw” since earlier versions of windows had serious bugs in that, we had to know every single piece of hardware, measure it, waste clock cycles on screen drawing when the system itself already KNEW all of that. And in THAT mode, it will only let you choose “default” (which can be readjusted in size, but not remembered) or “maximize” or “minimize” … there are no other options which can be programmed by me. So the excluder is designed for 640x480 sized screens doesn’t fill that, and depends on the system sizing it accordingly based on these factors FOR us. Doing it ourselves would have quadrupled the required memory for BOClean.
So in each and every situation you’re having there, the system itself along with the video card driver AND your font settings determines all of that. Therefore, there’s definitely something wrong on the system itself, most likely the driver not supporting “system calls” and sizing correctly nor properly repainting the screen when there’s an overlapping window.
I think there’s enough people here who can back me up on this not happening to them, nor have I seen it on any of our own test machines either. Not that this is a defense … only reason why we’re up to 4.27 now is that numerous people have reported some really squirrely things that I could never reproduce as a result of “unexpected situations” and they can tell you that each and every one (including yours) is something I genuinely pay attention to and either fix (if it’s my fault) or work around (if it’s somebody else’s) … but in THIS case, there isn’t a thing I can do because all of these are SYSTEM calls and Microsoft has not given me the source code to rewrite windows itself. Granted, most vendors write their OWN “web-based FORMS” and use MFC or Delphi to write their GUI code, but older versions of Windows CANNOT draw screens with that code so up until our next version, we have no choice in the current 4.xx versions and your video card SHOULD be supporting those modes. BOClean, especially in an administrator context, was written to be HIDDEN, not display system screens and do its job silently on those desktops out there. BOClean was designed to be a “silent bouncer” and just do its job as quickly and as expediently as possible, WITHOUT “end user option” and be silent, rather than “chatty.” As a result over the years, the screens weren’t our most important concern and sorry they are now. FWIW though, despite the spartan nature of BOClean, it was designed to do its job and sadly I’m not a “style artist.” I was never personally concerned with “pretty” … my thing was stopping the bad guys. Wish we could still write BATCH files. Heh.
Therefore I suggest dropping your font size back to something more normal just to verify what I’m telling you here - if there was ANYTHING I could do about this in the current code I would, but rewriting BOClean for MFC is already underway and it will drop all support for Win2000 and earlier in order for this to happen.
You might try Goose18’s idea … perhaps that’ll do it … but your font sizes, AND the fact that the title bar wasn’t drawn correctly either does lead me to think there’s something wrong with those ATI cards … hopefully a driver replacement might fix it, but the fonts are WAY too large for the system to draw them properly and I’m sure you know that we don’t draw those either.
Sorry for fewer details and no links to verify, but I wanted to at least get you some truth on this that you can verify yourself based on the Windows API calls we’re actually making, and visiting MSDN can confirm that they’re highly limited in anything I could do to affect the results. Apparently the card is not getting the correct information nor is it being instructed to “invalidate” underlayments and redraw them … we do not do ANY “owner draws” at all!
And again, as I said the first time, I’m really sorry that there’s nothing I can do about either of these issues for you - if I could, I would! Last thing I can suggest besides trying a different font size and default font might be (in your case) trying “compatibility mode” settings. If you try that, and the card picks one up, huzzah! Folks never have to use “compatibility mode” with BOClean, and it won’t affect security in any way, but perhaps your video card and driver might recognise one of those … but I still think the FONT is making the system itself gag …
Edit: More detail on available “document window” settings and final paragraph added.
