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Please note that we are not the makers of a computer program called English+. That program is made by Emme Interactive of France.

Installation


For help on using Grammar Slammer Deluxe with Checkers go to Questions and Answers about Grammar Slammer. This page is for questions about installing products.

Any Downloaded Program

English Plus+ uses what is considered the Internet standard ZIP program. However, a few unzipping utilities may be incompatible with it. Check out our page on Zip files for links to a number of utilities (some free) that have been tested to work on our files. Grammar Slammer is available in Windows .EXE files which require no unzipping, though they are slightly larger. You may download a demo from our download site in the .EXE format. If you have purchased the program and recieved a ZIP file and still cannot get it to work, contact us for an .EXE file. If you have your anti-spyware program on a high setting, it will not allow you to execute any program you have taken from a ZIP file.

Here is how to overcome that:

  1. Save the file onto your computer. If you have "unzipped" your files, then they have been saved whereever you directed them to be saved.
  2. Click Start, click My Computer, and navigate to the INSTALL or SETUP file that you saved.
  3. Right-click the file that you saved, and then click Properties.
  4. Click Unblock near the bottom of the dialog box.
Then you should be able to run the installation program. You may also have to use this procedure if you received the INSTALL or SETUP file via e-mail or Internet download.

Grammar Slammer with Checkers

Early downloads had a problem with the installation of one or the other of these files. You should have one file or the other in your installation folder. First, try simply renaming SSCE5232.dll to SSCE5332.dll. This file should be located in your Grammar Slammer installation folder. On most systems, that should solve the problem. If the error message persists after doing that, go to the bottom of our Download Page, where you can download either of these files (about 110K each). Simply copy them to the same folder where all your other Grammar Slammer Deluxe with Checkers (gsextra.exe) files were installed.

Grammar Slammer

If you get an error message saying that your computer cannot read the Help files, go to Questions and Answers about Grammar Slammer to find out the easy upgrade to that problem. If you installed Grammar Slammer or Grammar Slammer Deluxe, you should have an icon with the program's name in your Grammar Slammer Window. Click (or double-click, depending on how you set up Windows) and a small toolbar appears. Click the "G" button for the main grammar reference. This will pop up nearly 400 pages of easy to find English grammar information in the familiar Windows help file format. If you have Grammar Slammer Deluxe, there will be a similar "S" button with a similar reference of over 500 pages for English spelling. The "?" button displays a menu which includes various program choices like "Run at Start" or "Tool Tray Icon." Move the toolbar to any position on the screen by dragging the tab at the right end of the toolbar. If you have Grammar Slammer with Checkers, then the button with the check mark brings up the checkers.

If you run the program from the tool tray icon, clicking on the icon will give you the main English grammar reference, same as the "G" button. Right clicking on the icon will give you the menu, same as the "?" button. That is all.

Remember the original Grammar Slammer is a reference tool to be used with your checkers; it is not a checker itself. Ask for or download Grammar Slammer with Checkers if that is what you are looking for. The checkers are available only in Windows. For more on what grammar and spelling checkers can and cannot do, see https://englishplus.com/news/readthis.htm or the "What to Expect from Grammar Programs" icon in your Grammar Slammer "Programs" Window.

Problem with Installing Macros to Word Processors

There are two separate installation processes. First, install Grammar Slammer or Grammar Slammer Deluxe to whatever folder would be appropriate for you. During installation install the Word Processor Macro files into the Macro directory of your Word Processor program. Be sure to check this before installing the macro files. The installation program is set up for the commonest folders (directories) but there are many variations.

Since our toolbar or tool tray icon works in any Windows environment with any program, we do not recommend installing the macros unless you are familiar with your word processor's macros and prefer referring to Grammar Slammer from within your word processor.

The next step has to be done "manually" by the user. There is no autoinstall for installing macros into Word Processors. Follow the directions in the your Specific Word Processor Info file. If you installed the macro files, there should be an icon to click on this. Each of the four supported word processors has a different method for installing macros. After that, you can customize the word processor to include the toolbar button, keystroke, menu option, or any combination to get Grammar Slammer or Grammar Slammer Deluxe to pop up. If you do not work with macros much, you may need to check the help file or manual. You may have to change some folder notations depending on your system setup.

Unfortunately, word processor macros have to be added to your system "manually," but the steps are pretty straightforward. The macros are considered custom documents, and only the user can customize them. The registered copies of both programs and the Word-Processor-Specific demo files for Grammar Slammer have all the files you need.

For Mircrosoft Word Users. The MS Word Macro language has not changed since version 2.0. The macro does work on Word 97 and 2000. You may need to check to make sure that your MS Word is set up for Macros. In order to add written macros to your Word for Windows program, you must make sure that the Macro Language (WordBasic) has been installed. Word for Windows 6 and higher include a number of choices for installation. Make sure the Macro materials are installed. If not, reinstall MS Word from your original disks or CD-ROM and include the Macro/Word Basic option. (This can be done without destroying any files.) Consult your Word manual if you need more information.

For Word Perfect Users. The Word Perfect macro language seems to change with each version change. However, Word Perfect does include a macro conversion utility to convert macros to the current version. Our Word Perfect macros are written in the two versions which can be converted any other version. Use one or the other with the Word Perfect macro conversion utility.

Grammar Slammer 2.0

The best thing to do for any problems with version 2.0 is to upgrade to our most recent version. See Our Download Site for details.

This usually happens on machines which are configured for a language other than English. If this happens, you may manually copy and rename the files to the selected directory. We recommend making a directory (folder) named C:\GRAMSLAM and then copying the necessary files into it. The files needed are GRAMSLAM.EXE, GRAMSLAM.TXT, GRAMSLAM.HLP, EPOB.ICO, README.TXT, and GRAMSLAM.CNT. No other files are needed in any other directory, so a manual uninstall is easy, just remove the directory. Please note that the installation program may create a file with the suffix .LOG. Keep this file so that the uninstall program will work should you need to uninstall. When the program runs, a file named GRAMSLAM.GID is also created.

If you cannot get the GRAMSLAM.HLP file to work for you, try going into the Windows Explorer, and double-click on the GRAMSLAM.HLP file. If this does not successfully call up the Grammar Slammer help file, then either your WINHELP.EXE program is not working, not present, or in the wrong directory (it should be in your \WINDOWS directory), or your machine for some reason is not compatible. Please note that starting with Windows Vista and Windows 7, Microsoft no longer included the Winhelp file with its installation disk. Go to https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/917607 to download the appropriate Winhelp file. Microsoft does changes its URLs from time to time, so if this link does not work, do a search for "Winhelp" and your Windows version on the Microsoft web site. Kindly let us know so we can update this link.

This could be caused by one of two things. 1) Delete or uninstall the shareware files before installing the registered version. The Windows Help file reader program (WINHELP.EXE or WINHELP32.EXE) refers to its own INI files sometimes and it may be referring to one of those. Deleting the shareware files first should take care of that. 2) A defective or missing GRAMSLAM.CNT file (Windows 95/98/NT). Contact English Plus for a replacement file.

You have a Windows 3 version of the program, and your operating system does not have the Microsoft "legacy" software to read it. Contact English Plus for the Windows 95/98/NT version.

This is a known bug with the programming language used for Grammar Slammer and Grammar Slammer Deluxe. The language manufacturer has advised us that some video cards may not be able to display the color buttons in some video modes, and that they are unable to support all video cards on the market. There are two solutions which work for most users: (a) Try changing the screen resolution--for example, one ATI card we found works at 24 bit full color but not at 16 or 32 bit full color. (b) Try different version of the software. Download a shareware copy or, if you are a registered user, ask us for a fix. Version 1 will work on all systems (though it is missing a few features of later versions); Version 3 has been written to avoid this in most cases. Version 3 also includes a tray icon option--which many Windows 95/98/NT/2000 users prefer to the toolbar anyhow.

Verbal Vanquish or SAT Vanquish

If the SETUP program does not work correctly in Windows, try starting the INSTALL program from the DOS prompt. (Click on the MS-DOS or PC-DOS icon to get there. Then enter the correct drive and/or directory.) This should work in most cases. Follow the directions for Windows users if you have Windows. If either Verbal Vanquish or SAT Vanquish still does not install properly, simply copy all the files to the directory you want. (We recommend C:\VERBVANQ or C:\SAT, but that is up to you.) Enter README from the DOS prompt or run README from Windows for further instructions. Normally all that will be necessary after this is to run VV from the DOS prompt (and MV if you have the full SAT program). You may also add Verbal and Math icons to Windows according to the instructions. We have found that a few monitors (some Samsung ones especially) do not display Verbal or SAT Vanquish. You may try changing the Windows driver. This is somewhat ironic since the original Verbal Vanquish was written using a Samsung monitor.

Also note that for Windows Vista and Windows 7 and higher, you must download the Winhelp32 Windows Help file program as noted above. This is a free add-on from Microsoft.

WinAlter

If the SETUP program does not work--this may happen on some non-English systems--then copy WINALTER.EXE to any directory you want. Many people have some kind of Utility directory like C:\UTIL. Copy WINALTER.INI to the \WINDOWS directory. You will find most of your *.INI initialization files in this directory. Make sure that the file VBRUN300.DLL is in your \WINDOWS\SYSTEMdirectory. Chances are, if you have many Windows programs, you probably have this file already. If not, it available for free from most bulletin boards, online services, and software and shareware dealers. See the Download page on this Web Site for a link to download this program. Note that all our download files that need VBRUN files now have them, but you may have downloaded an older file that required it separately.

It is easy to "drag and drop" files from the File Manager (or Windows Explorer) to WinAlter. Simply click the left mouse button on any file name you want to alter and keep the button pressed down until the cursor is touching any part of the WinAlter window. Release the button and the file will be loaded onto WinAlter.

To load more than one file at a time, hold the Ctrl Key down and you may click on as many files in the same directory as you like. When you have clicked on the last file that you want, hold the left mouse button down and drag the cursor to any part of the WinAlter window, release the Ctrl key, and all the files that you selected will be loaded. If you want a whole group of files, do the same but hold the Shift key down and click on the first and last file in the group. This will select all the files between the two that you clicked on. You then may "drag" them all and "drop" them onto WinAlter.




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