SYSmark 2004 Known Issues
As of SYSmark 2004 release, the following issues were known.
1.0 Installation Issues
1.1 Windows 98 Second Edition (and earlier), Windows ME, and Windows NT 4.0 (and earlier) are not supported.
Please do not try to install on these operating systems.
1.2 Application compatibility:
You should not have any application installed on your system that is used by SYSmark 2004. The application list can be found at Software Compatibility Notes. Please uninstall these applications before installing SYSmark 2004.
1.3 McAfee VirusScan:
Please make sure you do not have any version of McAfee VirusScan or any other anti-virus software on your machine.
1.4 Systems with multiple drives or partitions:
SYSmark 2004 can be installed only in the system's Program Files directory. If one chooses to install SYSmark 2004 in a different folder, the folder has to be made the system's Program Files directory (not recommended).
1.5 SYSmark 2004 compatibility:
SYSmark 2004 will not work properly if the system has one of the previous versions of SYSmark installed. It also will not work if you remove the previous versions of SYSmark using the Add/Remove program before installing SYSmark 2004. Please install SYSmark 2004 on a clean system that doesn’t have any previous versions of SYSmark previously installed.
1.6 Some systems are configured to automatically display a video or tutorial after
boot up. Please disable any features such as this.
If not corrected, this could cause the benchmark to fail or produce incorrect results.
1.7 Installation on Japanese/Chinese OSes
Adobe Acrobat may not install properly on Operating Systems in Chinese and Japanese languages. This will cause the Office Productivity part of the benchmark to fail. There is no known solution except to re-do the installation from the start.
1.8 SYSmark erroneously reports that an application is not installed.
Description: At the end of installation on a Windows 2000 based system, SYSmark may report that Adobe Acrobat Distiller failed to install. There may be another pop-up error message indicating that a read-only file was found.
Workaround: Look for the pop-up error message about the read-only file. It may be under the SYSmark installer window. It is important to FIRST dismiss the read-only error message by clicking "Yes". THEN it is safe to ignore the Distiller error message and click "Next". The benchmark should continue to install correctly.
1.9 Read-only file warning on Windows 2000 during SYSmark installation
Description: During installation on Windows 2000, this error message may appear: "A read only file X:\...\msvcp60.dll was found..."
Workaround: Click the "Yes" button to dismiss the message. SYSmark may later report that Adobe Acrobat Distiller failed to install. It is safe to ignore this error message.
1.10 User ID Requirements for installing and running SYSmark 2004
You must be a user with administrative privileges to run and install SYSmark 2004. You must run and install SYSmark 2004 with the same user ID. BAPCo recommends using the Administrator ID or creating a separate administrative user ID for the purposes of running SYSmark 2004.
2.0 Benchmark Application Issues
2.1 Office 2002:
2.1.1 Office 2002 asks for user registration on some machines.
Description: At the beginning of the run of Office Productivity or MS Access, a dialog box pops up asking for user name and initials.
Workaround: Hit OK. Outlook/Access will open and not run. If this continues for a couple of minutes, close Outlook/Access. You will be prompted to abort/retry/ignore the run. Click Retry. The system will reboot and run Office Productivity, with no registration dialog appearing.
2.1.2 Office 2002 Document recovery.
Description: After any failure that results in Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint or Microsoft Excel closing abnormally, Microsoft Office will attempt a document recovery. This recovery results in a task pane appearing on the left-hand side of the Microsoft Office application, beginning at the next running of the application.
Workaround: After an abnormal closure, restart the system. After system boots up, start Microsoft Word by using the Start menu. Look on the left side of the application window. If a document recovery has been performed, you'll see a task pane with a list of documents. Move your cursor to the bottom of the task pane and select "Close". DO NOT RECOVER ANY DOCUMENTS. Answer "yes" to the query about having saved all the necessary documents. The document recovery task pane should disappear. Close the application. Perform the same set of tasks on Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint.
2.1.3 Excel 2002
No known issues.
2.1.4 PowerPoint 2002
No known issues.
2.1.5 Outlook 2002
2.1.5.1 A dialog appears saying Outlook cannot locate a place to send and receive mail.
Description: Outlook cannot locate a place to send and receive mail.
Workaround: Installation did not properly install Outlook. This could stem from the application not installing certain parts if Office was previously installed on this machine. You must start with a clean (no Office installation) drive and install SYSmark 2004 normally.
2.1.5.2 A dialog appears saying the BAPCo email services cannot be contacted and to go to the mail preferences and configure it.
Description: Same as 2.1.5.1
Workaround: Same as above
2.1.5.3 A dialog appears saying “Active window does not contain a menu”
Description: Occasionally, on the very first run of Outlook after the SYSmark 2004 is installed, Outlook is busy for some time and fails to respond in the expected time. As a result, the dialog “Active window does not contain a menu” appears and the Outlook script fails.
Workaround: When the dialog appears, click OK to close the dialog. Please close all applications, NOT saving any content, if asked to. After acknowledging the script error, you can click on the "Retry" button, at the workload manager prompt. The benchmark will then try again.
2.1.5.4 Outlook error in SYSmark 2004
Description: When SYSmark is used in certain time zones, there may be an error dialog in Outlook ("In Goto Date: can't
find appointment window"). This error typically happens for systems in the GMT +7:00 to GMT +12:00 time zones. This error can be fixed by
changing the Time Zone to GMT -08:00.
Workaround:
1.) Close the benchmark and reboot the system
2.) Click on the "Date and Time" icon in the Control Panel (The Control Panel can be selected by clicking on the Start menu. On the Classic
Start menu the Control Panel can be found under the "Settings" menu.
3.) Go to the Time Zone tab
4.) In the top combo-list, select (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US and Canada); Tijuana
5.) Click on the OK button to confirm
6.) Reboot the system and run the benchmark again.
2.1.6 Word 2002
No known issues.
2.1.6 Access 2002
2.1.6.1 Access Deadlock Error
Description: During the run of Access 2002 an error may occur stating that "Access.pc6 failed because the 76 possible deadlock condition in Access_common.inc on line 553.
Workaround: This is an intermittent problem, with the only solution being running the test again. Please close all applications, NOT saving any content, if asked to. After acknowledging the script error, you can click on the "Retry" button, at the prompt. The benchmark will then try to run that scenario again.
2.1.6.2 Access Visual Basic Error
Description: During the run of Access 2002 in Windows XP & Windows 2000 an error may occur stating that Close_Access.pc6 failed because "MS Visual Basic runtime error 7 Out of Memory".
Workaround: This is an intermittent problem, with the only solution being running the test again. Please close all applications, NOT saving any content, if asked to. After acknowledging the script error, you can click on the "Retry" button, at the prompt. The benchmark will then try to run that scenario again.
2.2 Naturally Speaking
2.2.1 NaturallySpeaking crashes with an exception
Description: Dragon NaturallySpeaking exhibits an application error. During starting the application, or during a run, a Dragon NaturallySpeaking error window appears stating that a serious error or an exception has occurred. Left to run, a variety of script errors can result depending on the location of the failure. These errors will be displayed with the NaturallySpeaking application error obviously shown in the background.
Workaround: This is an intermittent problem, with the only solution being running the test again. When the dialog appears, click OK to close the dialog. A dialog asks to close all applications. Please do so. Then, when all applications are closed or stopped running, click OK. Finally, a second dialog asks to abort, retry or ignore, please click Retry.
2.3 Internet Explorer
2.3.1 Problem: Older version of non-English Internet Explorer
Description: Test system has an Internet Explorer version older than version 6.0, on any non-English language operating system. Upon starting installation, the benchmark installer alerts that the Internet Explorer version must be updated. Installation cannot continue until the Internet Explorer has been updated to version six or newer.
Workaround: Due to size constraints, all the possible updates to Internet Explorer could not be packaged with the benchmark. Please go to the Microsoft web site such as Windows Update, and update Internet Explorer to the latest version.
2.4 WinZip
2.4.1 Having WinZip pre-installed on the machine
Description: When running the benchmark, WinZip script returns the error "the zip file does not exist" or "file number 27 does not exist". This is linked to a previous installation of WinZip that was not properly removed.
Workaround: Exit the current run in the benchmark by acknowledging the benchmark error. At the "abort, retry, ignore" prompt, choose "Abort". Let the benchmark perform its cleanup and reboot the system. After the system has rebooted, open the system control panel and choose "add or remove programs". Choose the "WinZip SR-1 and Command Line Support add on" program choice. Click on the "Remove" button to remove the program from the system. Reboot the system. After reboot, go to the benchmark installation CD/source files and navigate to the \install\apps\WinZip81 directory. Double-click on the "WinZip81.msi" file. Follow the prompts, using the default choices to install the application. After the application has installed without error, you can run the benchmark normally.
2.5 VirusScan
2.5.1 Result read does not match expected value
Description: VirusScan fails with the message " The result read, (number of files), does not match the expected value."
Workaround: This can be the result of file corruption during installation of the benchmark. Please contact BAPCo technical support for assistance in handling this error.
2.6 Acrobat
2.6.1 Acrobat PDFMaker printer driver error during test run on non English OSes
Description: Office Productivity workload is interrupted in Acrobat PDFMaker for Word with this error: "PDFMaker cannot locate the Acrobat Distiller printer driver. Please re-install Adobe Acrobat 5.0." A short while later, a SYSmark error message appears and the test fails. This problem is known to happen on some systems running Japanese or Chinese versions of Windows.
Workaround: For systems that experience this error, it is necessary to install another language edition of Windows on the system and reinstall the benchmark.
2.6.2 Acrobat PDFMaker scratch volume error during test run
Description: Office Productivity workload is interrupted in Acrobat PDFMaker for Word with this error: "Warning: Distiller's scratch volume is nearly full." A short while later, a SYSmark error message appears and the test fails.
Workaround: Close all applications and retry the test. This error occurs infrequently and seems to disappear on subsequent runs.
2.6.3 SYSmark fails to install Adobe Distiller
Description: At the end of installation on Windows XP installed with Dutch language, SYSmark reports that Adobe Distiller component was not installed correctly.
Workaround: The error message could be incorrect. Ignore it and start a test. If the test passes, Adobe Distiller is installed correctly. If the test fails, please contact BAPCo technical support.
2.7 Photoshop
2.7.1 Photoshop Scratch Disk Error
Description: The benchmark fails returning the error "Adobe Photoshop: could not find application after starting". The Adobe Photoshop application is open with a "scratch disk" dialog displayed stating that the scratch disks are nearly full.
Workaround: This dialog can appear on rare occasions. Typically, the dialog indicates that the scratch disk (your boot disk) is full, despite plenty of space available. To avoid the error in the future, change the disk configuration in the scratch disk dialog, setting "First" to "C:\" and "Second" to "C:\". Next, verify that there is available space, as per the minimum system requirements for the benchmark, on the hard drive. If not, space must be freed up by eliminating files, without removing any related to the benchmark. After verifying available space, the benchmark can be retried. Click OK to close the SYSmark error dialog. A dialog asks to close all applications. Close the Adobe Photoshop application, after clicking "Cancel" on the scratch disk warning dialog. When all applications have closed or stopped running, click OK on the Close Application dialog. Finally, a second dialog asks to abort, retry or ignore, please click Retry.
2.8 Premiere
2.8.1 Premiere Project Initialization Error
Description: SYSmark 2004 has a minimum system requirement which includes a working soundcard. In the absence of a sound card (on-board or discrete with the proper drivers installed), an error with the warning “DV/IEEE 1394 play back & not setup correctly. Playback performance will be impacted” will appear.
Workaround: With Patch 1, SYSmark 2004 checks for the sound card when starting. If a sound card is not detected, SYSmark will not run. The system needs to have a sound card, discrete or integrated, enabled and with proper drivers installed.
2.8.2 Premiere Application error
Description: Adobe Premiere freezes during rendering. The Task Manager indicates that Adobe Premiere is not responding, sometimes with the application window contents replaced by solid white. Left to run, the benchmark usually returns an Adobe Premiere script error: "Progress window didn't disappear after 3600 seconds of rendering"
Workaround: This is an intermittent problem, with the only solution being to run the test again. When the dialog appears, click OK to close the dialog. A dialog asks to close all applications. Please do so. Then, when all applications are closed or stopped running, click OK. Finally, a second dialog asks to abort, retry or ignore, please click Retry.
2.9 Dreamweaver
2.9.1 Dreamweaver fatal exception during test run
Description: During the Dreamweaver workload, a dialog appears indicating a "Dreamweaver Fatal Exception". This causes the test to fail and produce another error message, the exact text of which is dependent on where the error happens to occur.
Workaround: This is an infrequent error. Close all applications and retry the test.
2.9.2 Internet Content Creation workload fails in Dreamweaver.
Description: SYSmark fails at the beginning of the Internet Content Creation scenario. Dreamweaver MX is open and SYSmark reports this error message: "Unexpected error: 109 Active application will not enter menu mode".
Workaround: Close all open applications and retry the test.
2.10 Flash
No known issues.
2.11 3D Studio Max
No known issues.
2.12 AfterEffects
No known issues.
2.13 Media Encoder
No known issues.
3.0 General Issues
3.1 Starting a run after a failure occurred.
Description: A failure has occurred in one of the applications of SYSmark 2004 and you wish to start a new run.
Workaround: The benchmark will not close applications that are open when a failure occurs. Close all applications manually, either by using their menu to close the application or by using the Task List to kill the application, before restarting a run if a failure occurs.
3.2 Failure with a screen resolution change.
Description: The system suddenly experiences a video device failure which causes the screen resolution to be reset to the minimum (typically 640 x 480). This can occur during the run of any application in the benchmark. The benchmark script typically fails, usually the result of not being able to access a screen element.
Workaround: This is a rare occurrence. The cause has not been pinpointed. The only solution is to try running the test again, after correcting the video resolution. The minimum settings for the screen resolution are 1024x768 with 16 bits colors. Go to the Control Panel and choose "Display". Check that the proper video driver is configured for your system. If not, follow your manufacturer's instructions to set the proper video driver. Under the "Settings" tab, set the video resolution to at least the minimum resolution of 1024 x 768. Close the control panel after correcting the video resolution and driver. Close any open applications, not saving any content if asked. Acknowledge any SYSmark script error. At the "Abort, Retry, Ignore" dialog, you can choose to retry the test. The benchmark will start the test again.
3.3 Windows Styles, DPI, font sizes
Both Classic and Default XP styles of windows appearance are supported. DPI settings of Normal (96) and Large size (120) are also supported. Other DPIs can be tested, but are not supported. It is strongly suggested to run the benchmark using the normal font sizes.
4.0 Uninstallation
No known issues
