Problems and Solutions
|
Click on a question or statement to see the answer.
Download and installation problems
- My download stops in the middle and does not finish.
One cause for this we have found is a firewall. The safest way around this problem is to call or e-mail us and we can send you a CD in the mail. The other way around this is to temporarily disable your firewall. Your anti-virus should still check out the file for viruses if you don't disable the anti-virus software. If you do disable your firewall, don't forget to enable it immediately after the download is finished!
- After downloading, when I try to install the software I get a message: 'Error reading setup initialization file'.
This is apparently caused by something being lost or corrupted in the installation file during the download. The download works for most people but some have received this error. Many have tried the download a second or third time and then it worked. We have made a second link that may work for you. Download this by clicking here FHCD_Upgrade_MSI.exe
If you have this problem and do not wish to continue trying to download, e-mail us at support@familyhistorycd.com or give us a call at 1-866-810-5050 and we can send you a CD copy of the software.
- After I install the update, my software still shows my old version number.
This problem can happen for several reasons. If, when you downloaded the update, you specified to 'open' the file rather than 'save', then you should have seen the installation program start and take a couple of minutes installing the update. If you only did a 'save' when you downloaded, then the installation program is still on your hard drive. If you think this may have been the case, then you can either find the installation program in Windows Explorer and double click on it (or open it) to start the installation, or if you can't find it, you could download again and this time choose 'open'. Then it will start automatically.
If you did see the installation work, then maybe the following is the case:
The default place on the hard drive to load the software is c:\Program Files\Family History CD. When the software loads, it will give you the option to change it to another place on your hard drive. If it was loaded in a different spot and the update loaded in default place, then this problem would occur.
Just the opposite can also true: Loading in the default folder and later loading an update in a different place.
You can do a search for "FamilyCD.exe" on all of your hard drive and see if there is more than one copy of this program on your hard drive. If you see two of them, an older version and a newer version in two different folders, then this is obviously the problem. You can see by checking the file dates or you can actually double click on both of them (FamilyCD.exe) right in Windows Explorer (or My Computer) and see what comes up one program at a time.
In this case, you can reload your original software or download the trial full version if you want to relocate to the default folder to avoid this problem in the future. The trial version will still be the full licensed version for you because of the license number you keyed in. If you load from an older version CD, then install the update again. The trial version will have the latest and will not need the update. (If it still asks for your license number or that it is a trial version then you can re-key your license number in or e-mail us and we can send you your license number again).
Important: Before relocating, make (burn) CDs of all of the projects that you want to save. At first, you probably won't see your projects in the new location. Just take your CDs and click on the CD Projects button on the front software screen, click on Project Manager, then click on Copy From CD and receive in your projects one at a time.
Problems or errors while using Family History CD
- I have put buttons on my front page but they do not work.
We have found that users that have a setting of "large fonts" on their display properties were having this problem. If you right click on an open area of your desktop screen, then click properties, then click the "settings" tab, then click "Advanced", we are expecting that you will see that your setting says "large fonts" under Font Size. If you changed this to "Small Fonts", even temporarily while you build the front screen, that should fix the problem. You can then change the font setting back to Large Fonts. It does not hurt to leave them at 'small fonts'.
- Can I put my word processor files on a CD?
You can store any type of file in your CD project. The main thing to remember here is that the Family History CD software is not licensed to be able to read or view special proprietary formats such as Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, Excel, Access, etc. To try and do this would not only take up all of your CD space, but, to be licensed to do this would have put us out of business before we started. Yes, any file will work, but for these proprietary formats, the recipient of your CD would need the software to match the file in order to read or view it.
What to do: To be sure your documents, histories etc. are readable by all. Save them in a format that can be read by virtually all computers. PDF, TIF, and RTF (Rich Text Format) to name a few. The same thing applies to photos. Save them in one of the generic formats such as jpg, tif, gif, and others, and you should have no problems.