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MS Configuration Utility

This feature may not be provided under Windows 95, or may not have been installed under some pre-loaded (OEM) versions of Windows.

The Microsoft Configuration Utility is a utility program which allows you to see what files are being loaded at system start, and gives you the opportunity to selectively disable those for diagnostic purposes. This can be helpful if your game will not run, because:

  • you can start by disabling everything else in the system
  • if the game then runs, you know its failure to be caused by another loading program, rather than any fundamental hardware or game problem
  • you can progressively switch things back in to your system until the game no longer runs, at which point you know what is causing the problem
The configuration utility is not intended to be a permanent editor of these features. It is a powerful tool to gather information. At the end of its use, you should really reset everything back to where it was and leave the system as you found it. Hopefully, you will then know what has caused the problem, and that usually means that you can now use other methods to go effect a permanent cure.

Creating A Shortcut

This process will create a shortcut on your system desktop. 

Right-mouse click on your desktop (not on the menu bar area, not on an icon) and, from the menu which appears, select New... Shortcut. In the dialogue box which opens, in the command line insert the filename msconfig.exe as shown. 

Click Next and name the shortcut to something like MS Configuration Utility (or whatever you would like).

Click Finish and the new icon appears.
 

Using The msconfig.exe Utility

Launch the  msconfig.exe (MS System Configuration Utility) by double-clicking it, and examine the dialogue screen which opens. Note that there are different tabs at the top which allow you to examine various parts of your system's boot-up files. You start by looking at the tab which can switch each of these sections in or out. Whenever you make a change, you must restart your system, so that these changes can be applied. The illustration here shows that I have changed the start-up selection from "Normal start-up — load all device drivers and software" to "Selective start-up". 

Generally, never start your system without the system.ini and win.ini files. If you have problems there, you really need someone skilled at computers to sort that out. Start by de-selecting only the following line items:

  • Process Config.sys file
  • Process Autoexec.bat file
  • Load start-up group items
Now restart your system and see if Starship Titanic (SST) starts. This is only a test state: you must realise that many other things in your system will not work, such as scanners, networks, etc, because they've had their start-up drivers switched out.
  • If SST does start, play it through the opening sequence at least until you are in  Marsinta's Reception and have run the opening credits. At that stage, save the game. When you next start SST, it will give you the option of restoring that game instead of running that long opening sequence again. Close SST on completion, and then continue below.
  • If the game still will not run, your problems are not related to your system's start-up files (unless within the system.ini or win.ini files). Run and reset the MS System Configuration Utility back to "Normal start-up — load all device drivers and software". You will need to restart your system for this change to take effect. Do not continue with this process.
Close SST and run the MS System Configuration Utility again. One of those three things you switched out has stopped the problem. Now you must find which one it is. So switch one of them back in, and restart your system. Does SST still run? If yes, then switch another back in, and continue in this fashion until you find the one that causes the problems. Leave the problem area switched in and proceed as follows.

I am going to assume here that the problem lies in the "Load start-up group items" area. Change the tab at the dialogue box to that area. Now you can see what programs are loading within that area. The illustration shows my system, and shows that I have started to switch some items out. This is what you need to do also... switch out the items progressively, restart each time, and see when SST goes from a 'not working' state to a 'working' state. When it does, you know exactly the item which is causing you problems!

What To Do?

So let's assume you now know what item is causing the problem. First of all, reset your system back to normal using the MS System Configuration Utility, by selecting "Normal start-up — load all device drivers and software". Now, what can be done about putting a permanent fix in place? 

That really depends very much on what it is that is causing the problem, and the normal configuration of your system. Is it some feature you can live without? If it isn't, you may well be stuck with it.

If it is an item in the start-up group, it may be removable by uninstalling some program or part of a program. The short-cut menu bars so loved by office applications and graphics drivers were a regular source of problems a few years back, and best removed from most systems.

If it is an item in your start-up group which you cannot remove by uninstalling some program, then the only way to remove it from your system is to edit your System Registry. Because of the complexity of the options involved in that task, also the potential system damage if you get it wrong, it is not something I will explain further here. Sorry.

If, instead, it is an item from your config.sys or autoexec.bat files, again decide if you can live without it. If you want to edit those files, there is another utility for that called sysedit.exe (System Editor) which you can set up a shortcut to from your desktop, just as before. Be careful when editing these files, because their command lines are potentially very powerful. The image below shows the System Editor in use.


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