One for the Windoze enthusiast!!

[Cornish Jack]

Hewlett Packard VL6; Pentium 2; 256Mbs Ram; W98SE.
Complete re-install after FDisk and re-partition to two drives. All installed OK and all programs working OK APART FROM FREECELL!!!! Have tried two further re-installs, deleting Freecell and re-installing, transferring the full Freecell application from a known working setup...... still the same problem, which is the title on the blue bar appears as a 'C' cedilla, followed by a 'U' with two grave accents above it followed by an inverted query, as in Spanish and finally a wide vertical bar. The 'egg-timer' just keeps running and it's not possible to initialise a new game.
Thought I'd seen most of the peculiaities of the dreaded Windows but this is something totally new!! Can anyone offer any explanation or (even better) a possible fix.
PS - I have tried SFC, with no improvement.
TIA

[ORAC]

Usually a driver or Direct X problem, and usually associated with an ATI video card.

Try Updating the card driver with the latest version and update to the latest version on Direct X. Then uninstall and reinstall using Windows setup.

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

ORAC,

That computer either came with an onboard Cirrus 5446 or an optional Matrox MGA Millennium II.

I would try running dxdiag.exe to see if there is a problem with the Direct X video acceleration.

Take Care,

Richard

[Cornish Jack]

Thank you, gentlemen, both.
ORAC - see below.
NAC - it's the Cirrus Logic on board and I have the latest drivers from HP. Is dxdiag.exe part of the Direct X program?
Problem is now fixed - YET ANOTHER complete re-hash and re-install!! Done it so many times now that I can remember the CD Key without looking!!! :*

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Cornish Jack,

Glad to hear you were able to solve the problem with a fresh install of Win98SE.

Take Care,

Richard

P.S. dxdiag.exe is the diagnostic program from Direct X.