If you’re running IBM’s ViaVoice 98 speech recognition software on Windows 98 on your network, it’s probably for a good reason. For example, your company may employ physically challenged users who depend on voice-activated input to do their job, or maybe your company is trying to reduce the costs associated with standard dictation procedures. So when a glitch crops up that prevents these people from using ViaVoice 98 to do their jobs, then it’s your job as the support person to fix the problem.

Fortunately, most of the common problems that crop up between IBM ViaVoice 98 and the Windows 98 operating system are relatively easy to fix. I’ll take a quick look at two of the most common problems and explain their solutions.

Invalid page fault with Vtcommon.dll
The first problem that you might encounter with ViaVoice 98 running in Windows 98 has to do with the Vtcommon.dll file, which is a common support file used by ViaVoice 98. When you open the Control Panel or any one of the tools in the Control Panel, or you attempt to open the ViaVoice tool, you may encounter one of the following error messages:
EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in module VTCOMMON.DLL
Rundll32 caused an invalid page fault in module VTCOMMON.DLL
EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in module KERNEL32.DLL

As you can see, the first two error messages specifically point to the Vtcommon.dll file as the source of the error. Unfortunately, the third error message is too generic to be of any help in actually pinpointing the cause of the problem. However, if it occurs when you’re running ViaVoice 98 with Windows 98, it’s most likely related to the ViaVoice 98 program. At the very least, any one of these error messages indicates that the Vtcommon.dll file has been corrupted. Unfortunately, the only way to fix this problem is to reinstall ViaVoice 98.

Of course, your first inclination may be to use the Add/Remove Programs tool. However, this error usually prevents you from accessing the Control Panel in order to run the Add/Remove Programs tool. As such, the best way to fix this problem is simply to reinstall ViaVoice 98 on top of itself. When you do, the ViaVoice 98 installation program will realize that the program is already installed and simply update any of the program files that are missing or out of date.

Therefore, in order to ensure that the Vtcommon.dll file is replaced, you need to rename it. This will make the ViaVoice 98 installation program think that Vtcommon.dll is missing and replace it. The quickest way to rename this file is to launch the Find utility and search for Vtcommon.dll. When you find the file, rename it to Vtcommon.xxx.

Invalid page fault with Msaahtml.dll
The second common problem that you might encounter with ViaVoice 98 and Windows 98 has to do with the Msaahtml.dll file, which provides Microsoft Active Accessibility support in Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. This error only crops up with version 4.01 of the Internet Explorer and Outlook Express package. When you exit Internet Explorer, you may encounter the following error message:
Explorer caused an invalid page fault in module msaahtml.dll at address

When you attempt to reply to an e-mail message in Outlook Express, you may encounter the following error message:
Msimn caused an Invalid Page Fault in module msaahtml.dll at address

In both cases,address will be some numeric value that refers to an address space in memory.

As you can see, both error messages specifically point to the Msaahtml.dll file as the source of the error. Apparently the version of Microsoft Active Accessibility support that comes with the Internet Explorer 4.01 package has a conflict with ViaVoice 98. The original fix for this problem was to update the Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) support to version 1.2, which was included with Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 2. However, since Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 2 is no longer available on the Microsoft Web site, you may want to consider upgrading to Internet Explorer 5.5 SP2 or to Internet Explorer 6 SP1.

Additional information
If you’re still supporting IBM ViaVoice 98, you may be interested in the IBM ViaVoice 98 FAQ, which can be found on the IBM ViaVoice site.