Susan,

Depending on what you see when SPSS crashes, there could be a number of things going on. If SPSS is freezing or exiting without warning, local conflicts with other applications or drivers are a possibility. I don't know much about Winshield, but if you suspect a conflict with SPSS, the best empirical test is to shut it down and see if you can replicate the behavior in SPSS. In general, trying to replicate the problem in a simplified environment -- preferably Safemode -- is useful for diagnostic purposes, since it narrows the range of possible conflicts SPSS might be encountering. If SPSS doesn't crash in Safemode under the same conditions, you can gradually reintroduce applications and drivers normally launched at start-up to see which might be a problem for SPSS. This is information we can use when you contact SPSS Technical Support.

If, on the other hand, you are receiving particular messages prior to SPSS's shutting down, this should be useful information. It sounds like you might be running the EXAMINE procedure (Statistics->Summarize->Explore) which, when plots are requested, can be fairly memory intensive. If you're seeing references to memory, you might try increasing the amount of RAM that SPSS can access via the SET MXMEMORY command. If you see references of the sort "low on system resources," you might be running low on virtual memory, in which case you would need to redirect it to a different drive or partition through Win 95 or free up contiguous disk space on the drive it's using now. If you are seeing messages that suggest SPSS is failing to write temporary files, you might need to redirect your temp file location in SPSS. Whatever the case, you'll probably want to contact SPSS Technical Support with the details on any messages, on your SPSS installation, and on your system resources.

It might also be helpful to determine if the problem is file- specific. If the problems you were experiencing occurred in the same file, try doing something similar in one of the .sav files that come bundled with the software. This too is useful information when we are trying to isolate a problem.

I hope this information helps,

Ed Tverdek SPSS Technical Support

>-----Original Message----- >From: Susan Elgie [SMTP:selgie@OISE.UTORONTO.CA] >Sent: Friday, July 03, 1998 3:36 PM >To: SPSSX-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU >Subject: SPSS 8.0 > >Today I was doing an SPSS demo in our lab and had a terrible time! The >software crashed at least five times while I was doing hard stuff like >boxplots and stem & leaf's. Arrrgh. > >We are using 8.0 standalone copies with nice machines networked to a >printer etc. We have WINSHIELD installed to help out with security issues. > >Any ideas as to why??? Or similar experiences?? I certainly do not have >the same problems in the quiet of my office. (I'm wondering about the >WINSHIELD). > >Hope you all have great weekends, > >Susan > >********************************************************************* >Susan Elgie, Research Consulting Service, OISE, University of Toronto, >252 Bloor St. West, Toronto, Canada, M5S 1V6 (voice) 416-923-6641, ext 2762 >selgie@oise.utoronto.ca (FAX) 416-926-4725 >*********************************************************************