I'll tinker with it more this weekend. Yesterday was a busy day, and I only had a few minutes to try uninstalling/installing before calling it a night.
In any case, the DLL error appears at the bottom when the program loads. Initially it was a larger window that I closed and it never seemed to reappear as the same size (even after uninstalling/installing).
The same DLL errors are a pop up window that appear whenever I select something from a drop down menu. Unfortunately the 'Start Center' is not what I see at all. My screen is empty with only file, edit, view, and help, drop down menus (and the DLL error on the bottom for a short time at startup).
The 'file' drop down menu only has 'exit' as an option. The 'edit' drop down menu only has 'preferences' as an option, The 'view' drop down menu has 'workbench' with sub options. Most of the sub menu options I've selected show the error: DLL load failed; %1 is not a valid Win32 application.
I believe selecting part and/or part design results in the pop up error window too, but I can't verify at the moment.
This PC has had many things installed over the years with some uninstalls. I have so many programs on it that I've had to combine stuff into groups as the 'start menu' went off the screen. My guess is I have a conflict, so I wouldn't devote too much time helping me since it's an XP system, and who knows what has happened to my PC over the years.
I appreciate the help, but I feel guilty since even I consider running XP silly. At some point over the weekend I'll tinker more, but I'll also try installing on a junk XP laptop I have.
Soon I need to look at what I have for software and make decisions on what I can live without (due to cost) so I can upgrade to a real computer without depending on my work one. Trying to upgrade to newer versions of software isn't..... hmmmm....... as easy let's just say to obtain as in the past. In the past I liked having a piece of software that was universal to stuff used in industry such as Solidworks, or maybe Altium, Xlinx, etc...
Obviously I can use free versions, hobby versions, limited versions, alternate software, alternate open source free software, etc... but knowing I'm designing something in a program that is a skill I can use in my profession is why I like name brand software; but it comes at a cost such as Altium being what.... $15k ?
For the record, about four-years-ago I began piecing together a system on pcpartpicker.com, and found myself overwhelmed with wondering how much I'll spend on software. I blinked, a year went by, blinked again, and now I struggle to view a 3D knob.
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