(If you have additional suggestions please add them as a comment at the bottom)

Paratext remembers a lot of choices you have made when restarting. Sadly sometimes there could be a bug that causes these remembered choices to crash Paratext. Ruling out this possibility should be your first response whenever Paratext starts to act strangely in situations where you never had trouble before.

To reset Paratext to forget your previous choices:

• Hold down the shift key and KEEP holding it down until step 3 below
• Right click on the Paratext icon and select the “Open” command
• When the dialog comes up asking you if you want to reset Paratext release the shift key and then click OK.

If you have previously used Windows > Save Text Combinations to save your windows layouts, it is easy to reopen these windows. If resetting fixes your problem, observe Paratext carefully and see if you can figure out what action (if any) causes the problem to happen again. If you discover this action please report it to support@ubs-icap.org so that we can fix Paratext.

Because of the way Windows handles permissions about who is allowed to access what files it can make a critical difference what user ID you use to log on. If you have more than one user ID on a machine try them all and see if some work and some don't.

It is quite possible that Paratext might work for user ID with administrative privileges and not work for an ID without user administrative privileges.

If you discover that Paratext only works for some user IDs ask your computer support person to help you adjust access privileges to allow Paratext to work for all user logons.

Delete the “United_Bible_Societies” folder inside the application data tree. When data in this folder is corrupted, Paratext may not start. When you delete this, Paratext will start as though it had never been run before, it will ask what language to use, and it will not remember the windows you last had open. But all installed projects should be present, and all your Saved Text combinations in the Windows menu should be present. When this folder is deleted, Paratext will recreate it.

To see these folders, you must have “Show hidden files and folders” set in Windows Explorer: In XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Application Data In Windows 7: c:\users\<user>\AppData\Local

<user> means your Windows login user name. If you cannot see this path in Windows Explorer, go to Tools > Folder Options > View tab and select “Show hidden files and folders”.

• Reinstall the released version of Paratext
  • This is available here: http://paratext.ubs-translations.org/download/pt
  • Download the file Ptw 7.1 Upgrade
  • Unzip it
  • Double click Ptw71Upgrade-7.1.104.pud
  • Restart and retry Paratext

Remove any viruses found.

Paratext uses the display engine that comes with Internet Explorer. Paratext has been tested with Internet Explorer version 6.0 thru 8.0. If you have a later version than this (especially if they are Beta versions) you are in uncharted territory and should go back to 8.0 if you are having problems with Paratext. Click on the blue question mark icon in the Internet Explorer menu bar and then “About Internet Explorer” to see what version you have.

Download verson 8.0, uninstall your version, reinstall 8.0.

Ask a computer repair person to run a complete set of diagnostics on your machine. It would be particularly important to run a memory check for an extended period of time and to make sure that all your fans are working so that you are not experiencing overheating problems.

• Move all your .ssf files from My Paratext Projects to a temporary directory
• Reinstall Paratext supplied .ssf files by double clicking “Ptw71Upgrade-7.1.104.pud (from the Reinstall Paratext step above)
• Restart Paratext. If your problem has disappeared, start moving .ssf files back a few at a time until you discover which project is causing problem
• Restore all .ssf files to My Paratext Project directory

Paratext really has only been tested with My Paratext Projects installed on a local drive. If you decide to install it on a shared network drive, especially one hosted under Linux, you are on your own.

Sometimes anti-virus and anti-spyware programs can become overly aggressive and shut Paratext down. In order to determine if this has happened to the following:

• Disconnect your computer from Internet, e.g. remove network cable
• Turn off (you may need to consult with an IT person to do this)
  • Firewall
  • Anti virus
  • Anti spyware
• Restart Paratext
• If this makes Paratext work, re-enable the protective programs one at a time until you discover which one is stopping Paratext from working. Ask your IT person how to configure the protection in a way that does not shut down Paratext

One thing you should particularly guard against is having two different anti-virus packages installed and enabled at the same time. This can totally disable Paratext as the two anti-virus packages fight with each other.

Windows can be configured to save backups of your system in a way that allows you to go back to earlier working configurations. Hopefully your system is already configured to do this. If not you should definitely ask your computer support person how to do this. In order to go back to an earlier and hopefully working configuration do the following:

• Go to All programs > Accessories > System Tools > System restore. In Vista or Windows 7, you may be to do this by typing “restore” in the “search for programs and files” box, then selecting “System Restore”.
• Select “Restore my computer to an earlier time”
• Select the date point you want to restore. Click “Next” to confirm, and Windows will do the restore to the specified date.
  

For additional information:

• XP:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306084
• Vista: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/What-is-System-Restore
• Win7:http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/What-is-System-Restore

Do a comprehensive reinstall (altho I am guessing the chance that this will succeed if the limited reinstall above failed is not very great)

• Use system control panel to uninstall Paratext
• Manually remove the Program Files/Paratext 7 directory
• Using Regedit remove the registry entry and all its subkeys
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ScrChecks (for 32 bit systems)
  • “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\ScrChecks” (for 64 bit systems)
• Manually remove all directories in the directory c:\Users\<your user name>\AppData\Local\United_Bible_Societies\Paratext.exe_Url_<some long string of letters and numbers> (Windows Vista/7) or C:\Documents and Settings\<your user name>\Local Settings\Application Data\United_Bible_Societies\Paratext.exe_Url_<some long string of letters and numbers> (Windows XP)
• Follow the instruction here to do a clean install of Paratext
  • install
  • Make sure you specify the same drive for My Paratext Projects as you are currently using or it will appear as if all your project data is gone

Download and install .Net 3.5 from here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/cc378097

If you are current running windows XP you could also do the procedure documented below to uninstall and completely reinstall the .Net 2.0 Framework that comes with Paratext. This procedure is not suitable for non-experts:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/908077

If your hardware is suitable to be upgraded to Win7 there is a some chance that whatever is stopping Paratext from running might be fixed by the upgraded.

I am sorry to say it might come down to desperate measures — especially if you have no local IT support help. A really good IT person can probably poke around on your computer for a while and figure out why it is all of a sudden not running Paratext anymore and help you avoid these measures.

Reformat hard drive and reinstall OS. Paratext almost always installs easily on a clean install of Windows. This will also likely speed up your computer if it has been several user since you have done this. Clearly you will need expert help to do this and the opportunity for data loss is great.

Buy a new computer. Maybe now is a good time. Once again Paratext very rarely fails to install and work on a new computer system.

Paratext refuses to backup a project, giving this message:

Component ‘XceedZip.dll’ or one of its dependencies not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid

The fix is relatively simple:

1. Start the Windows command console (command.com)
2. Navigate to the directory “\Windows\System32\”
3. Type the following and hit enter:

   regsvr32 xceedzip.dll

4. a message appears saying:

   The DLLRegisterServer in xceedzip.dll succeeded

   and now you should be able to do backups again.