Number 208 - September 2000

Version Conflict Manager
encapsulated Jim Seymour column in Nov 17, 98 PC Magazine
What is it? VCM is used by the Windows 98 setup program to replace software drivers it believes are old, bad or non-standard. It does this behind the scenes and never tells the user what is happening or ask the user's permission to swap out the drivers. The VCM does save the replaced drivers and if you have problems after setup then you can run the VCM utility and replace the drivers you will fix the problem.     Why should I care about it? According to Jim Seymour, and it's a raw estimate, 5 of 25 installs will have problems after setup is complete. If you can determine the cause of the problem and it is one of the replaced files then you can us the VCM utility to get back the replaced driver.	Where do I find it? How do I use it? To run the VCM utility start the System Information utility. This utility is under the System Tools menu. After starting System Information utility go to the Tools menu and select Version Conflict Manager. You will now see a list of all the files that VCM replaced during setup. Just select the files you want to restore and press the Restore Selected Files button.     Jim Seymour reports that this procedure has solved many a setup failure. [Whoa! Very powerful! Be extra careful! See Carl Tenning's comment on page 1 of the July 2000 TOGGLE.- ed]
Number 208 - September 2000