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Primavera Project Planner - P3

Error In Primavera P3 3.1 on Sony Vaio Machines

In the Open Standard
Kafo SouqMember for 17 years 7 months
Created
9
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Dear All

I have bought a new Laptob (Sony Vaio VGN-SR26) Dual Core Processor and running genuine MS Windows Vista Business Edition and It comes bundled with an XP (Win XP Pro with SP3) CD also

--- The Begining
Now For starters I downgraded the machine using the CD and Installed my trusted version of P3.1

The problem is that once I open filters and Go through one filter and start picking values (Like Name of Engineer under resources) The Entire P3 Quits and an error message of "Unable to lock Password" pops up ,

I tried to install SP3 pack for Primavera and that didn’t solve the problem so I reinstalled Vista and Regained the riginal factory settings from the Original Packup CDs and I installed Primavera

Only This time to meet new Error Message once I go an Pick Filters and Fiddle through the values

1- First P3 Freezes and
2- An Error Message appears and Says (wowexec caused an acess violation in ntvdm.exe at 0x0edad64d) followed by
3 - Another Error Message that Says (NTVDM.EXE had stopped wrking and needs to be terminated)
4- Some other filters give me a "KERNEL32.DLL Error first and Thn Error 3 Apperas (the NTVDM.exe one)
------------------------

Now I rang sony for this and Thy said that the machine is fine and no problems had been sighted for 16bit applicatons on their machines

The Net is empty on this regards, going through the faults on google some topics suggest that P.3.1 Doesn’t go will with Dual Core Machines

Some Refere WOWEXEC/KERNEL32.DLL/NTVDM.EXE errors as registery errors

Some Refere to the ABove errors as caused by a violation to DOS emulation attempted to be accessed using Windows NT

Primavera UAE tells me with a cold blood that they don’t support P3.1 anymore and they can’t help me with this
------------

For God’s Sake all what am asking for is P3 to run normally on this machine (It is a very expensive machine and I need Primavera to work on)

Any Solutions my fellow planners ?

Help Please and sorry for the long post

Yours Truly

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9 replies

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  1. 0
    Charleston-Joseph Orbe ·
    #1
    You have three choices:

    1. throw the pc and buy a cheaper one using xp operating system

    2. throw the P3 ver 3.1 and get P5 or P6

    3. wait for the other PP member to share their experience and get whatever you can from their experience. It may take days, weeks, months or years.

    Cheers
    Happy Planning and Scheduling
    Report
  2. 0
    Dieter Wambach ·
    #2
    Charly

    Why so pessimistic?

    Kafo

    Up to no I tried to keep Vista at biggest distance. As far as I remember, Vista Professional is a 64bit version. This doesn’t support "antique" 16-bit applications as btrieve - the database behind P3.

    But you have Windows xp. Install it and P3 will work.

    P5 uses SQL-server 2000 which isn’t supported by Vista. P6 would be required.

    Good luck!
    Dieter

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  3. 0
    Kafo Souq ·
    #3
    Dear Dieter Thank you for your attempt to help me , If you read my Post you will see that the problem appears in both Vista and XP (Only in XP it is a sudden shutdown of the system without any error messages)

    And am using the machine with teh 32bit architecture , as you know Windows Vista Ultimate is 64 Bit, Windows XP Ultimate is 64 Bit but I am using only Vista Buisness 32 Bit and XP Pro 32 Bit - Both Generated Errors

    But You gave me an Idea t try to fix Btrieve or So as the Error Happens only at Filters and Their Particulars

    Any Other PP have any Ideas

    PS: As for Mr Charlie Orbe:
    I will keep this 1500Euro Machine and Will not Compromsie on P3 and I think PP Memebers will help me out sooner than years Please try to be more constructive on you help

    Thank you all
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  4. 0
    Dieter Wambach ·
    #4
    Kafo

    Did you check your access rights? P3 I know from XP: Install and it works. Your error messages seem to result from a not possible or a lost connection. It should work under vista 32bit without problems.

    Good luck!
    Dieter
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  5. 0
    Kafo Souq ·
    #5
    Dear Dieter

    Thank you for your continous help

    Can you please advise me on what connection is Primavera P3.1 is trying to make ?

    i know that P3.1 doesn’t need an internet connection or anything of the sort

    Thanking you all for your help

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  6. 0
    Dieter Wambach ·
    #6
    Kafo

    WOWEXEC and NTVDM.EXE are essential for all 16-bit applications. Does NTVDM.EXE exist on your PC? I found that some virus are known that replace this file to hide themselves.
    Can you install it from i386? Do you have access to good pc experts or to the Microsoft hotline? Situation seems strange since both should be installed automatically with xp.

    Sorry, I’ve no idea why NTVDM.EXE wasn’t properly installed.

    Regards
    Dieter
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  7. 0
    Kafo Souq ·
    #7
    Dear Dieter

    Thank you so much for your continuous support
    The problem is solved ... Here is how

    Sony Vaio and The Likes of Fancy Laptops Have a great amount of Fancy Software that they bundle with their machines for free Those are usually called in present tech. forums as "Bloatware" or "Carpware" or even "Crapware :)" - Those Software had been responsible for so many problems in Vaios but not this one , However another interesting fact was ;

    Also some fancy machines feature extra security measures Like Fingerprint readers (wasn’t the problem) and TPM (Total Protection Management) Chipset that interrupts both the Bios and Windows To provide almost invincible machine to hijackers – Now this little midget was using Btrieve module access to DOS database (WOWEXEC and NTVDM) and hence the conflict with Filters in Primavera P3 , P3.3 & P3e & P4 (Tested them all)

    I found this by trial and error
    First: I installed XP with no drivers at all
    Second: Installed Primavera
    Third: Started Installing the Drivers one by one and testing P3 after each download/restart sequence (agonizing process but did lead me to the Bad Guy Here)
    Forth: Did a bit of research about the so called TPM and how it works just for my intellectual satisfaction

    Finally: I advice everyone how is going to purchase a new machine to check the drivers compatibility with his ancient planning tool (P3) – remember there is always alternatives – It is also good to know that a lot of the free programs that come with your new machine really consumes a lot of space (30GB in my case) and consumes a lot of TSR (Resident memory) and slows down your machine – So unless you really need it, dump it

    I Thought of sharing my experience with all of our PP members so next time a planner gets stuck with a WOWEXEC cause an access violation in NTVDM at 0x0???? (Wrote most of it to make it easier to goggle it in the future)

    Again Dear Dieter thanks a million

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  8. 0
    Dieter Wambach ·
    #8
    Dear Kafo

    Thanks for the explanation. Sorry I was misleaded. In your first post you mentioned a new installed "virgin" pc. So I assumed that you didn’t install that stuff.

    Good luck with your projects!
    Dieter
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  9. 0
    Kafo Souq ·
    #9
    Dear Dieter

    It was a virgin computer : Those come with the CD and install them selves whether you choose to or not (in Vista) but in XP you have the choice

    Thanks
    Report

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