INFO: Characters within AVR IOFields become overlaid on IBM XP Professional PCs

The information in this article applies to:

ASNA Visual RPG, Release 3.5 and 4.0
Windows XP Professional
IBM

SUMMARY:

On certain IBM XP Professional PCs, text within AVR's IOFields become garbage when overwritten. This only only occurs with IBM's XP Professional modified OS.

STATUS:

Current.

MORE INFORMATION:

The file that is modified that causes the video corrpution is: lpk.dll and it can be found in windows/system32 directory.

IBM's is shipping its PCs with Microsoft Windows XP Professional and IBM's suite of applications called "IBM Tools".

One of these "IBM Tools" is causing characters (text) in our iofields and other controls to overlay each other and result in a unreadable garbage. We have not been able to resolve this with IBM support (and neither have other customers working with IBM Support) . Uninstalling all or part of the "IBM Tools" does not correct the issue. We have found a solution, in that, if you insert the Microsoft Windows XP Pro CD in to your CD drive and choose to "repair" an installation of Windows XP Professional, it will correct this behavior and the characters appear normally.

RESOLUTION:

Here are your two options to resolve this issue:

You can use the same file from a PC from Dell with XP Professional;
Perform a Windows XP System Restore using the Microsoft XP Professional CD that arrives with your PC.

For more information about "repairing" an existing XP install, consult Microsoft Support or you can search for the words "how to repair Windows XP" on any web search engine and get tutorials on how to do this. However , the content of these sites is beyond our control and you will follow their instructions at your own risk. We found several websites that address "how to" repair a Windows XP installation, such as this one at
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm#How%20to%20Repair%20Windows%20XP%20by%20Installing%20Over%20top%20of%20Existing%20Setup

NOTE: After repairing a Windows XP Pro installation and correcting this video refresh issue, if you install the "IBM Tools" again, you will get the experience the character overlay behavior again.