Category: Geeks r Us
Hey. A couple of days ago, Freedom Scientific released an update to JAWS with a lot of significant fixes and updates. I read the what's new and thought it was worth the download. So I did and after updating, all seemed ok. However, when I went to a webpage and did an insert down arrow to do a say-all, that's when the trouble started. I knew I had a problem, but how to fix it? So, we fast forward to earlier on today, that being March 1st. On one of the JAWS e-mail lists I'm on, someone posted a fix for the problem, and it worked for me. So I'll give it to you guys so that if someone updates to the new release and has a similar problem, maybe they can correct it. Now before I give the directions, let me just say that I really like JAWS as a screenreader a lot, but I wish FS had done a little more checking on some systems. After all, you should not have to perform the steps I'm about to give. They should've fixed it before releasing it. I know the release for Vista was important, but if people have to do this to fix it it could scare some folks off. Ok, here are the steps as to how to fix the latest JAWS if you do a say-all and get an error message.
1. go to your start menu, then programs, then JAWS 8.0.
2. Press enter on Explore JAWS sub menu, and then press enter once more for explore my settings.
3. if you ppressed enter once more, you should now be in a list of files with a lot of interesting extentions.
This is your user settings folder.
4. now arrow through the list, and you will probably see 2 files, one called default.jsb, that's john, sierra, bravo, and another one called Default.jss.
5. now delete default.jsb and default.jss in the usual way. Be careful because there's also a file that calls itself default.jsd! make sure it's a jsb file, and not a jsd file.
6. Ok, now that you've deleted default.jsb and default.jss, you'll need to restart JAWS. Simply press insert plus f4 and press enter on the ok button and JAWS will shut down. It may take a few seconds on some systems, sometimes
Just delete them as you would any other files.
7. now, restart JAWS with the hot key you set, or you could always press enter on the desktop icon, both work fine.
8. JAWS should now function as normal, because it was seing 2 sets of defalt files and i guess it was getting confused as to which one.
But once you delete these 2 files and restart JAWS as I said, it should work fine. Admittedly, FS should've made sure this wouldn't happen, but they probably wanted to get something out for Vista users. yay.
Anyways, if you follow those simple steps, everything should be fine. and it goes without saying that if you updated and if you're having no problems, just be glad you didn't go through what I did, it was kind of nerve-wracking! But it is fixed now and the new update works great. If you wanna know more, go to the Freedom Scientific website. http://www.freedomscientific.com. Hope this little tip helps some folks who might be having JAWS errors.