Bizarre 2: On XP answer file command sometimes hangs

[Huisingh, Larry R]

What happens if you turn off your anti-virus software?  Perhaps that name is
somehow triggering something in Norton that hangs your system.  I have heard
about performance problems of many types in many apps when the anti-virus
program is active.

Larry Huisingh
 

> Subject: Bizarre 2: On XP answer file command sometimes hangs
>
> I've no answer for David Epstein's problem, but I've 
> encountered a weird one of my own.
> 
> Om XP (SP1), I have a simple utility tool made from the 2.5 
> engine named "makeConfig_2.exe". There is a button on the 
> screen whose script has an "answer file" command in the first 
> line of the mouseUp handler. 
> I've been using it on and off for a year with no problems 
> until yesterday. When I clicked on the button, the app hung 
> before the Windows file selection dialog opened. It needed 
> the Task Manager to close out. After much pulling of hair, I 
> discovered that if I changed the exe name (for example to 
> "makeConfig.exe") it worked. But if I changed it back again, 
> it didn't.
> 
> During the hair-pulling, I was able to confirm the following:
> 
>    -- the original stack worked fine from the IDE.
>    -- another exe  which was working fine, displayed the same 
> problem when renamed to "makeConfig_2.exe"
>    --  renaming the original problem "makeConfig_2.exe" to 
> anything else (makeConfi_2.exe, pie.exe, etc.) would make the 
> problem go away.
> -- When booted up from NT 4 from a separate drive on the same 
> machine, it works.
> 
> Norton AntiVirus shows the system to be clean.
> No major changes to the machine recently (except for network
> reconfiguration)
> Later in the day, the SP2 update failed on the same machine. 
> (might indicate a problem)
> 
> Any similar experiences or thoughts??
> 
> 1-- Is "makeConfig_2.exe" a well-known no-no for file naming?
> 2-- Time to do a complete re-install on this machine?
> 3-- The house is haunted?
> 
> Before 2 though, I'd feel better if I knew what was going on.
> 
> Cheers
> Dave
>