GP Fault in PROGMAN.EXE with More Than 40 Program Groups

• Microsoft Windows operating system versions 3.1, 3.11

SYMPTOMS

If you upgrade to Windows version 3.1 on a system with Windows 3.0 that has more than 40 program groups, the following error message occurs when Setup attempts to create the program groups:

   Progman.exe caused a General Protection Fault in Progman.exe.

CAUSE

Windows 3.0 has no limit on the number of program groups that can be created in Program Manager; however, Windows 3.1 is limited to 40 groups.

RESOLUTION

To solve this problem, edit the PROGMAN.INI file and reduce the number of groups that are loading to fewer than 40 groups.

This can be accomplished as follows:

1. Open PROGMAN.INI in Notepad to edit the PROGMAN.INI file.

2. Locate the [Groups] section.

3. After the [Groups] section, you will see lines beginning with the word "GroupX," where X is the group number. For example:

         Group1=c:\Windows\main.grp
   

4. Remove the extra GroupX= lines by placing a semicolon (;) at the beginning of the extra lines until you have no more than 40 groups. For example, let's say you have groups called Example and Example2, and you don't use these groups very often. Remove them from you list of active groups by adding a semicolon as follows:

         ;Group40=c:\Windows\example.grp
         ;Group41=c:\Windows\example2.grp
   

5. Save the file and start Windows as usual.

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