CertiGuide to A+ (A+ 4 Real)  9  Chapter 4: Diagnosing and Troubleshooting in the Windows OS       9  Less Fatal Errors

General Protection Fault (GPF), Invalid Page Fault, Access Violation 1 Invalid Working Directory

General advice: Check the application requirements, both hardware and software (version of Windows, version of data access component etc). If the requirements are met, you should check if the application is installed correctly. Typical application has a setup application, which you should run before you start using the application it. If it is already installed, uninstall it with Add/Remove Wizard and install it again. That might solve many different problems.

Besides .exe file, Windows application can consist of some other files that are necessary to run it. Typically, those .dll files are actually parts of the application. The reason this part is not put in .exe file is that some other application will need the same code. This code sharing between applications saves hard space and saves memory space when you use those applications at the same time.

Application cannot load when it misses some .dll file or the system has a wrong version of the file. You can solve this problem manually if you find the right .dll. You should place it to the same directory where the .exe is. Application will load and find this .dll though other applications will not find it. Windows typically shares .dll files by storing them in WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory on Windows 9x and in WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 on NT family.

Another typical problem is that application misses some Registry entries. (Re) installing the application should fix the problem.

If you discover that the application you are trying to use does not support this particular version of Windows you have the best you can do is contact manufacturer to see if there is a new version to support your operating system.

General Protection Fault (GPF), Invalid Page Fault, Access Violation 1 Invalid Working Directory