Support Page

Our textbook and virtual lab products are now shipping. We have worked out all the issues we are aware of, but know that you will make us aware of new ones.

If you have difficulties that are not discussed in our FAQ documents below, please report the issue to us on our feedback form.

If you are an instructor who enjoys the product and are interested in learning more or trying out the product with students, please contact customer support at customerservice@perfectionlearning.com or call 800-831-4190. We will have a representative contact you.

System Requirements FAQ

Installation
Running the product

Installation:

'Installer user interface not supported' and 'Unable to .........in GUI mode'

You may have an old version of Java that is causing a conflict. Please install the version of Java included on our CD by doing the following: Go to the install CD and double click on Required Software folder. Look for Install_Java.exe and double click on that icon. Select the default option for all of the dialog boxes presented. Once the install finishes, please restart your computer and run the Kinetic Books installer.

The Authentication dialog is requesting a key code and I can't find it.

Please locate the case that contained the installation CD. On the back of the case you should see a sticker containing 2 numbers and 2 bar codes. The key code will be the 20 digit alpha numeric string.We do not use the letters O or I to reduce confusion with the numbers 0 and 1.

While authenticating, I received a "Could not connect" error.

You may receive this error if you do not have an active connection to the Internet or your computer's clock is not set correctly. Please ensure you have an active connection to the Internet and that your computer's clock is set correctly and try authenticating again.

"We are sorry, this key code has already been used."

You are trying to use a key code that has already been used to authenticate the product. If You believe you are receiving this message in error, please contact us with your key code information.

After installing one of the products, I click on a desktop icon and get an error message 580: Server not responding.

If you are using AOL as your default browser, please set your default browser to IE or Firefox and launch the desktop icon again.

I have current versions of Java, QuickTime and Flash installed, but I get a blank window when I try to run an Interactive Problem or Lab Exercise.

Our product relies on a platform-specific piece of code to interact with Java and QuickTime. If you have the current components above, you still need to install this code. Please click here to install the required software to access the product posted on our web site. If you do have the current components, the installation will require approximately 3 MB of disk space.

The install has finished, but I do not see the first picture on the 'Getting Started' page.

Kinetic Books requires Macromedia Flash. If you are not seeing this, the installation of Flash was not successful. One option is to run the installer again. Another option is to visit the Macromedia support page to install the latest version of Flash from Macromedia.

The install has finished, but I do not see the second picture on the 'Getting Started' page.

Kinetic Books requires Java. If you are not seeing this, the installation of Java was not successful.

On a Windows PC the best fix is to remove ALL versions of Java by going through the following process:

1. Right-click on the 'Start' button in your Windows menu bar.
2. Select 'Explore'.
3. Click on 'Control Panel'.
4. Double click on 'Add or Remove Programs'.
5. Select any occurrence of 'Java'.
6. Click remove.
7. Answer any dialog box questions as required.
8. Repeat this process until no more occurrences of 'Java' appear.

After all versions of Java have been removed in this way, run the Kinetic Books installer again.

A second option is to visit the Sun Microsystems support page to install the latest version of Java from Sun Microsystems and follow the suggested procedures on this site.

We have not encountered this problem on a Macintosh.

The install has finished, but I do not see the third picture on the 'Getting Started' page.

Kinetic Books products require QuickTime from Apple Computer. If you are not seeing this, the installation of QuickTime was not successful. One option is to run the installer again. Another option is to visit the Apple Computer support page to get help installing the latest version of QuickTime from Apple Computer.

I got a message that says, "Trial timed out."

You have been running a trial version of the Kinetic Books product(s). Please visit our site to purchase a non-expiring version or for an updated trial version. www.kineticbooks.com.

I'm not sure the installer finished and/or all the components I need are installed.

Click here to begin a verification process. To verify that you have succeeded in installing the product, make sure you launch the simulation that you are asked to launch. You can also run the installer again; if it detects that components like QuickTime are installed, it does not install them again. Click here if you need to run the installer.

Access privileges are needed to install Kinetic Books products.

Installation of this product requires Administrator privileges. Please ensure that you have Administrator privileges before installing. If you do not have privileges on your computer, please contact someone who does.

I installed a second product, but the welcome page only shows the first product I installed.

Please, click the "refresh" button on your browser.

The installation seems to be hanging and not completing.

Under some circumstances, the installation of Java or QuickTime may hang. If you encounter this issue, please check to see if "Installing Java" or "Installing QuickTime" is on the screen, exit the Kinetic Books installer and try installing Java or QuickTime from the CD. This can be done by using Explorer to view the contents of the CD. In the folder "Required Software" you will find Install_Java and Install_QuickTime. Simply double click on the appropriate file to run the installer. (For example, If you are hanging on Java and your CD ROM drive is D: you will want to double click on D:\Required Software\Install_Java.exe.)

Running the product:

I have upgraded to Quick Time 7.0 and the audio in the whiteboards is not working or portions of the audio are clipped. What can I do?

The first technical issue prevents the narration tracks in the whiteboards to play on the Windows platform. You can download wbscript.js to your Program Files/Kinetic Books/ProductName/scripts folder i.e. C:\Program Files\Kinetic Books\Physics_for_Scientists_and_Engineers\scripts to solve the problem. If the scripts folder is not there, please create the folder and place wbscripts.js in that folder

Second, we are actively communicating with Apple about the audio clipping problem on all platforms and will post a solution when we have it. One alternative is to uninstall QuickTime 7 and re-install QuickTime 6 from the Required Software folder on our installation CD.

When I open an exercise, I see a security alert and need to know whether I should respond.

When you start an interactive problem or a lab exercise, you may see a security alert asking you to accept the Java code. You should accept this. If you choose "Always" you will not see this message again. You can do this safely since it only affects Java code from Kinetic Books.

I am having difficulty running Kinetic books products with 800x600 screen resolution.

We do not currently support this screen resolution in Firefox on Windows or Safari on the Mac. Please increase your screen resolution. If you are running Windows, use Internet Explorer 6.0 to view our products at 800x600 resolution.

To change your screen resolution on Windows, go to:

• Start menu> Control Panel> Display> Settings tab> Resolution

To change your screen resolution on the Macintosh, go to:

• Apple menu> System Preferences> Displays> Resolution

When I open a white board, I do not hear audio.

We ship the product with the default set to play the audio in the white boards. If you are not hearing the audio, please check to ensure that the mute button is not on (a filled in circle indicates that the audio is being muted.) If the audio is not muted in our application, please check to see if the system audio is muted.

On the PC, you can do this by clicking on the speaker icon in the task bar's tool tray or by opening the 'sounds and audio devices' in the control panel. In either case, check to see that the 'mute' checkbox is not checked and the volume is set so you can hear sounds created by the system.

On a Macintosh you can check the audio volume by pressing 'volume up' key on the keyboard or going to the 'System Preferences' in the tool bar, selecting 'Sound' and adjusting the volume slider at the bottom of the page.

I would like to read the text being spoken on the white boards.

At the bottom of each white board window is a set of controls including 'replay', 'back', 'next', 'close', 'mute' and 'show text'. Please click on the 'show text' button and you will see the text to the right of the window. Notice that the 'show text' button becomes a 'hide text' button.

I cannot enter new values for parameters in an interactive problem that is running.

Some interactive simulations deliberately forbid changing parameters while the simulation is running (so that the simulation reflects the input values being displayed). For instance, the initial vertical velocity of a ball cannot be changed while the ball is in the air. Press RESET and then enter the new values. Other interactive simulations do allow you to change values when the simulation is running.

I installed Java version 1.5 and sound no longer works in some Java exercises.

In version 1.5 of Java, Sun removed the midi sound library called soundbank.gm. We have included this library in our products starting with version 1.10. The easiest way to fix the issue is to reinstall the Kinetic Boooks product. We will detect your Java 1.5 installation and place the midi library in the appropriate directory.

I just installed Netscape and now I am having trouble hearing audio in whiteboards.

If you have installed Netscape after installing Kinetic Books Software, you will need to re-install the QuickTime plug-in. You can do this by visiting the Apple support page and downloading the latest QuickTime installer.

I just installed Netscape 7.2 and now Internet Explorer is requesting a new session each time I launch an interactive or lab exercise.

Netscape 7.2 full version includes an earlier version of Java. To solve this issue, please follow these steps:

1. Right-click on the 'Start' button in your Windows menu bar.
2. Select 'Explore'.
3. Go to your Control Panel.
4. Double-click "Java Plug-in"
5. In the dialog box that comes up, select the "Advanced" tab
6. Use the drop-down to select a line that begins with JRE 1.4.2
   NOTE: If you do not see a JRE that begins with 1.4.2, please go to the Sun support page and download the current Java VM.
7. Select the "Browser" tab
8. Check the box next to "Microsoft Internet Explorer"
9. Press Apply