System.ini - Question plse

[risk_reversal]

I wonder if someone can shed some light on the following

In system.ini, I have entries under [boot] & [boot.description] that I needed clarifying. I have been wrestling with a long term problem and it looks like this is the cause of my occasional vga boot error.

I wonder if someone could tell me what these entries should look like after the =.

[boot]
*DisplayFallback=?
display.drv=?

[boot.description]
display.drv=?

Not sure if I need to list my set up but the vga card I am running is a GeF4 Ti4400 card.

Many thanks for any info that you can provide.

[GaryRouth]

Hi riskreversal

Sorry it's taken so long to respond (another career choice time, lots of research, etc.)...

The lines you refer to have been in the default system.ini since the Win95 days, and allow Windows to use the Standard VGA driver when your regular driver won't load. Of the two links below, the first shows the default entries for those values, and the second link explains the function of the DisplayFallback value in the [boot] section. (That default value is usually set to 0 [the number zero]... In that same section, the displaydrv value is usually set to pnpdrvr.drv). If you'd like, you can manually edit that [boot] section to reflect those values - they usually stay at that default (Notepad can do this).

The display.drv value in the [boot.description] section, however, should change once a working driver for your video card has been installed [in your case, the nVidia card]. If you'd like, you can edit that section also, to the value Standard Display Adapter (VGA), and try uninstalling and reinstalling your video drivers.

If that doesn't remove the errors, try running the System File Checker [easiest to start from the Start/Run box, type "sfc" without the quotes], and see if it identifies any of the display files as corrupt. You can extract a fresh copy from your installation files, whether on CD or on your hard drive [sometimes stored in C:\Windows\Options\Cabs]

Below are the two MS Knowledge Base articles that have all these details and more:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;140441

http://support.microsoft.com/default...NoWebContent=1

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[risk_reversal]

Thanks for our comment Gary.

The problem I am getting is that under [boot.description] I am finding it very difficult to get the display.drv= to correctly register my vga driver.
For a long time, I wrestled with a boot problem that I thought was hardware related only to discover that the system.ini file showed display.drv=Standard PCI adapter. In [boot], I have display.drv=nvdisp.drv.

Many thanks for clarifying the fact that I can edit the [boot] section. I did try to edit the display.drv under [boot.description] but that did not seem to work. I guess this should be a windows function.

As a last question, when I try to load my vga driver, the display.drv entry continues to show 'standard pci adapter' presumably I should try to reinstall my vga driver until the system.ini file correctly picks it up.

Many thanks again.

[GaryRouth]

If it continues to give you trouble, try removing things in Safe Mode (remove display adapters from the Device Manager lists, and any video drivers in Add/Remove Programs) - then edit the [boot] and [boot.description] sections to the defaults, and on reboot try your Detonators again.

If you fix it with a different method, let us know how you did, so we can add it to our bag of tricks.

[Stephen092578]

Something else you might try, I have run into the same problems with older IBM 300XL systems that have an S3 onboard video controller. Where it states display.drv=?, remove whatever is after the = sign and enter vga.drv.

display.drv=vga.drv

Reboot the system in Windows normally.

This will reset the display driver back to a standard video driver with 8 and 16 colour support. Once you get this far try installing the correct video driver.