Technical Readme for Hal 

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This document provides additional technical information to supplement the manual.

Installing MSAA
This version does not yet install MSAA automatically, thus you must perform any necessary installation of MSAA yourself.  Depending upon the operating system you are using do one of the following: 

A) Using Windows 95 and 98?  Then run msaardk.exe (from the Hal installation directory after installation).
B) Using Windows NT?  Then install service pack 6 or higher, this is available from Microsoft (MSAA is supported with service    pack 4 or 5 but we recommend installing service pack 6 because this provides some additional MSAA support for common    controls and the Windows desktop).  To find out what service pack you currently have installed, go to the Windows Start    menu, select "Programs", then select "Administrative Tools (Common)" and select "Windows NT Diagnostics", then select the    "Version" property sheet.
C) Using Windows 2000?  No action required as MSAA is already implemented in Windows 2000.
D) Using Windows Millennium (ME)?  No action required as MSAA is already implemented in Windows ME.


Using Hal with for Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Font Smoothing

If you are using Hal for Windows NT Workstation 4.0 in 16-bit (or higher)
colour mode, then you should make sure that "Smooth edges of screen fonts" is turned off in the Display properties dialog box. (The Display properties dialog box can be found in the Windows Control Panel.)  If you don't do this then some text may not be seen by Hal, and therefore not spoken.


Microsoft Intellipoint
Hot keys involving number-pad 0 to 9 don't work properly if you have some versions of the Microsoft Intellipoint mouse software loaded. This is due to a bug in Intellipoint which causes the state of the Num-Lock key to be reported incorrectly.


Microsoft Natural Keyboard.
The hot key Num-pad slash (used to move the split screen position) may not work with this keyboard. The Microsoft Natural Keyboard produces the wrong keyboard scan codes for the Num-pad slash key in some circumstances.


Video card driver selection.
Hal should work with any video card supported by Windows 95 providing
you use the Microsoft supplied driver and not any third party display driver.


Screen Resolution Changers
In Windows 95 do not change screen resolution or colour depth whilst Hal 95 is running.

In Windows NT you can change your screen resolution whilst Hal is running, but do not change your colour depth.


Video Cards in Windows 95/98

There are no known problems with video card compatibility in Windows 95/98. If you experience problems then please use the Microsoft supplied driver (on the Windows Installation CD-ROM) and not the one supplied with your video card.

Video Cards in Windows NT

There are no known problems with video card compatibility in Windows NT. If you experience problems then please use the Microsoft supplied driver (on the Windows NT CD-ROM) and not the one supplied with your video card.


Windows 98
This version of Hal 95 includes support for Windows 98.

All existing Windows 95 applications that work in Windows 98 should work with Hal 95. Hal is compatible with the version of IE4 that is built
into Windows 98.

END-OF-FILE. 
