Your MegaDots software package contains an installation CD-ROM and a card giving your MegaDots Serial Number and Password.
Do not install MegaDots on a system running with 64-bit Windows. MegaDots will not work on a 64-bit Windows system.
You need administrative privileges while installing MegaDots. See the end of this chapter if you are installing on the Microsoft Vista or Windows 7 operating systems.
c:\mega24.
c:\Megawork. Note that the
Tutorial (Chapter 6) is based on using c:\Megawork.
You cannot install MegaDots 2.4 on a pure MS-DOS system since it uses a Windows-based installation program. If that is an issue, you can install MegaDots 2.2 on a pure MS-DOS system.
MegaDots was written as an MS-DOS program. It still is an MS-DOS program. The new Windows Installer sets up all the Windows icons and shortcuts for you. When you run the program, it is an MS-DOS program. This means that you cannot use the Windows clipboard to move material in or out of MegaDots (except in the limited way provided by the Windows control menu). It also means that you need to use short (8 dot 3) file names to locate files on your computer. However, MegaDots can read Windows files and can output to Windows devices. But do note that there are some inexpensive Windows-only printers that do not work with MegaDots (see Chapter 5).
The installation should produce the following
directories: a Program Directory (usually c:\mega24) and a
work directory (c:\megawork).
There should be the following icons on your Desktop:
There should be a Duxbury Group from the Start Menu, Programs. The Duxbury group should have the following icons:
The file extension MEG is registered to MegaDots.
If you have one or more JAWS or Window-Eyes directories, the MegaDots script files are copied into them automatically. If you use MegaDots 2.4 with speech, see Chapter 13 for additional information on avoiding problems, such as sluggish Eloquence speech in MegaDots.
MegaDots works well with 32-bit Windows. MegaDots does not work on a 64-bit Windows system at all.
On many modern systems, including 32-bit Windows Vista systems, an MS-DOS full screen is not readily available. If you experience this on your system, you have several different choices for how you run MegaDots.
If your system has an NVIDIA GeForce 6150 video card, then you cannot run MegaDots in a full screen, even if you are not running Windows Vista. Some other NVIDIA video cards, in addition to the GeForce 6150, also have a problem with running MegaDots in full screen. In addition, if you are running Remote Desktop, or are emulating Windows on another platform, you also cannot use the MS-DOS full screen.
If you cannot run MegaDots in full screen, consider the approach of using an alternative video driver. If that approach is not available in your situation (such as running MegaDots through virtual PC on a 64-bit Windows system), or if this approach has not worked for you, then answer "no" to the installation question about running MegaDots in a full screen. Then launch the MegaDots 2.4 without Speech icon.
If you are using Windows XP, change the font name and size on the print side. To do that, launch MegaDots and press Alt-spacebar. Then press P and select the font tab. Choose "MegaDots window braille" as your font. To enlarge the font, see the description that follows the next paragraph.
If you are running Windows Vista or Windows 7, change the font size from the braille side. Press F5 so that there is a "B" in the beginning of the status line. Press Alt-spacebar, then P, and select the font tab.
The idea in enlarging the font is to make the window as big as possible. Be aware that the window can never take up the whole screen. We recommend 24 point for a sighted user, 20 point for a user of JAWS or Window-Eyes. If you are asked, save these parameters for future use of this program.
Be aware that the "MegaDots window braille" font is designed to work with screen font smoothing turned on. If the font appears to have box-like braille dots without any shadow dots, you have screen font smoothing turned off. On your desktop, right click, choose, Properties, Appearance, click on "Effects" and make sure the "screen font smoothing" choice is checked.
Answering "no" to the installation question about using the full screen restricts the range of screen modes that are available in MegaDots. For displaying braille, your choices are "dots," "ASCII," and "Expanded."
On some systems, you can run MegaDots in full screen by downloading and installing a Windows XP driver for your machine's video card. Alternatively, you could use the instructions below to install the Standard VGA video driver. Our own experience has shown that undoing and re-doing these changes is difficult or impossible. By all means, place system restore points if you take this approach.
To take this approach, answer "yes" to the MegaDots installation question about running MegaDots in a full screen. Click on MegaDots 2.4 without Speech icon. If you get the full screen and can get Big Dots, then stop here. You are done.
If you get an error message saying "This system does not support full screen mode", then we need to proceed with giving an attitude adjustment to Vista. Note: any changes are made at the user's risk.
You need to disable Vista's User Access Control (UAC) security feature until you have completed making the changes. Actually, this step may not be necessary. If you cannot do step 1, then give step 2 a try anyway.
You need to download and run a program called
TweakUAC. To learn about this program, go to the website
http://www.tweak-uac.com/what-is-tweek-uac. To actually run
the program, go to the link
http://www.tweak-uac.com/TweakUAC.exe. Once you run TweakUAC,
turn off UAC or switch it to "quiet mode".
In order to get a full screen in DOS, you must use Vista's "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter" video driver (as described in the next paragraph) instead of whatever driver you or Windows installed for use with your video hardware. (Alternatively, if your hardware makes this possible you may want to install the Windows XP driver for your video hardware as described below).
If your monitor goes blank, wait five minutes, then power down your computer and restart it normally.
If your monitor does not go blank, wait while the driver is installed; click Close; then continue to press Close or OK or otherwise close dialog boxes until you are back to the desktop. If you are prompted to restart your computer, do so. You probably should do so anyway.
Now, it is very important that you set a Restore point on your computer. If you don't, then switching back to the default driver for your video card for better graphics might make it difficult to get back to the MegaDots-friendly display.
If you want to reverse this procedure, follow the same instructions, but let Windows automatically install the appropriate software for your system instead of browsing your computer for driver software.
Review Step 1, only reverse the setting changes you made.