Hello Graham,
You reported that only the detachable characters don't load up. OK, so that means it is only the MS Agent Characters that don't work, since they are the only detachable ones. The 3-D Characters like Sandy which aren't detachable but they do work, are the Haptek Characters, which are in a totally different character folder from where the MS Agent Characters are located, and the Haptek Characters also use a totally different technology.
Is this the exact error you get?
"Error loading msagent character - 2147417843-1: An outgoing call cannot be made since the application is dispatching an input-synchronous call".
If this is the error you are getting then go to the following Desktopmates link and maybe even try downloading the files and do a manual install as instructed at their website. Forget about that Zabaware CD for now! You got an old system which may require a manual setup for the MS Agent Technology to work the way it is supposed to work! Even though you mentioned that your DesktopMates Characters work with your CyberBuddy you still may want to do this anyway, but that's totally up to you. All I can tell you is that doing the following sometimes works to get the MS Characters working with Hal.
http://www.desktopmates.com/faq.html#21You should look for the stuff that says the following:
The "error loading msagent character -2147417843-1" is known to occur for several reasons:
1. The Hal Program is having trouble locating either the character or one of the msagent core components required to operate the character. Make sure you have all the required msagent core components installed from our New User Start Up Page if you have already done this and have successfully been running your character using the CyberBuddy program then you should also be able to use the character with Hal as well.
2. This error is also known to a appear on slower computers or a computer that are being depleted of it's resources. First thing is to make sure there's no other programs running at the same time in the background that could be depleting your system resources (memory). Also make sure your system is defragged on a regular basis (every few months at least). And of course check your system for any viruses or worms, they can go undetected and may only cause some minor problems in the beginning by depleting system resources or corrupting files.
3. Here's a few suggestions that have been used that has often corrected this problem.
(a) Try changing the setting on how Ultra Hal starts up in the general options under the "Startup" tab and select "I want Hal to start like a normal program from the start menu. Hal will not be accessed from the system tray but rather from a window that appears".
(b) Try running the Ultra Hal install setup again and choose the "Repair Option".
NOTE: If you downloaded and installed one our character Plugins for Hal, these ARE NOT character programs, they are just plugins that patch your existing DesktopMates character into the Ultra Hal program and you must already have the actual DesktopMates character installed on your system for the plugin to work. The plugins aren't required to make the character work with Hal, they just make the loading of the character appear more seamless.
OK, now that stuff mentions starting Hal like a normal program from the start menu. You said you can't get your Hal to work with that option. The reason may be because you need to manually remove the Hal Startup Shortcut in your System Startup Folder. You can do a system Find/Search for "Ultra Hal Assistant Startup" to locate the shortcut and remove it. And then change the Startup Option to start like a normal program, and then reboot and try it out. I think that on a Win98 system the path to the Hal Startup Shortcut would be something like C:/WINDOWS/Start Menu/Programs/Startup/
I had all the same problems that you just reported when I installed Hal for one of my friends on an old ME system with less then half the power and memory that you have. And amazingly enough everything started working after I did all the usual stuff including a Disk Cleanup and Defrag along with a system registry fix. But it did take about two weeks or so before things just seemed to all of a suddenly start working right. Yes, it was weird but so is Hal!
Good Luck,
Rich_A
