win2000 - tab in to game fullscreen crash

[wamingo 1]

As topic says, my ArmA crashes when tabbing back into ArmA when running fullscreen. I'm using windows 2000 and when I ask people who run XP, they seem to have no problems tabbing in/out of fullscreen ArmA. So I imagine this is a win2k problem.

I've been playing in windowed mode to escape this issue, which works fine, but it's not as smooth so I'd like to resolve this finally.

The error is non-descript:

"Program Error

arma.exe has generated errors and will be closed by Windows.

You will need to restart the program.

An error log is being created"

Does anyone running win2k experience this as well?

It crashes every time.

It happens under 1.04. It happens under 1.05.

Now trying 1.07 patch and it still happens.

Thought I'd wait with posting lots of dx bollocks before someone confirms or unconfirms it. Though, I am pretty confident that all my drivers and dx and whatnot are up to date.

specs are 3500amd, 7600gt(256mb), 1.5gb memory, audigy sfx.

I've tried all settings on both lowest and highest, clean install, defragging, different drivers, and many other assorted things, but it makes no difference.

I think this is specific to windows 2000 (and that this is something BIS needs to fix), but I'd like to hear first if others using win2000 have no issues tabbing in or out.

(had to do the xinput1_1.dll hack to get 1.07 to work too btw)

[Mr_Tea 0]

Alt+Tab worked fine for me in version 1.05 and 1.05+

I use Win2k Prof. SP3, the SP4 could be responsible for that problem.

[wamingo 1]

SP4 is broken? I do use SP4.

[ArMoGaDoN 0]

I have had that problem too (Win2k), under all service packs with OFP, and now with ArmA too.  Sometimes it's fine, sometimes it dies.  Only way to go is to make another shortcut for when you aren't gonna be able to play uninterrupted, and in that shortcut add -window to the arguments list.  That runs it in windowed mode, and you can leave Arma to do whatever you need to do without killing it.

Only time I run fullscreen is when I am sure I won't need to interrupt the gaming session.  Whenever I am working on a mission and editing stuff in a text editor etc. I'm always in windowed mode.

It's not just ArmA/OFP problem - many apps are exactly the same.   Doom3 is even worse, for example.

Just work around it, unless MS ever get around to really fixing DirectX, which they won't for 2000 now anyway, we're stuck with it as it is.  Even their own flight sims behave the same.

On the rare occasions that I do feel brave, and have to tab-out - then I always use alt+tab to return, NEVER use the mouse on the taskbar, as that seems to increase the likelihood of everything going tits-up.

p.s. That hack seems to work better/more stable if you move those 4 files to your ArmA folder instead of the winnt/system32. You might want to move them too. No idea why though.

[Mr_Tea 0]

SP4 is not broken, but caused many problems for me and for friends of mine.

Win2K with SP3 works perfect, no problems here.

But if you use an ATI card you need SP4 for the Catalyst drivers.