Here I am, sitting here in the wee hours of the morning (late night) programming away. After being stumped for awhile, I suddenly get a revelation and start hacking away. Within Visual Basic, I type out code like it is going out of style. I run the program -- "EUREKA," I shout, because it works like a charm! After spending 30 minutes coding this rather difficult piece of code, I then move the mouse to FILE so that I may save this wonderful work of art. Low and behold, a Microsoft menu pops up and says, "This Program has Performed an Illegal Function." I stare in disbelief as my only option to this rhetorical statement is an "OK" button. No, it is *NOT* "OK" I want to save my F*#@$ing work! In the slight hopes that perhaps it might still be recoverable, I press "OK." My blissful naivety is soon jolted by the cold cup of reality as my program makes a hasty and quick exit off my computer screen. I look around at the task-bar in the hopes that *MAYBE* it is still somewhere to be found. NOPE! The SOB is gone COMPLETELY. This was just one rare error that seems to have no cause. Perhaps a cosmic ray or a neutrino hit one of the transistors in my CPU -- but the net effect is I LOST 30 MINUTES OF INTENSE BRAIN WORK!!!!! RE$#*%$#*%($#*%($#%($#% IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII HHHHAAAAAATTTTTTEEEEEEEE CCCOOOMMMPPPUUUTTTEEERRRSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!! (I'm done)
It's a Microsoft thing. You should try to avoid doing important things in Windows. And you should definitely avoid writing important things in one of Microsofts "Proccessing Programs" or "Integrated Development Environments". If you can't avoid it, save, save, save, and save again, every line you enter. And copy it to a floppy before Windows gets a chance to run one of its "defragmentation" programs or "System Maintenance" wizards. However, I do believe Microsoft is slowly approaching a useable stage. In the few months that I have been using XP on one of my machines, it has not crashed once! But maybe that's because I don't do important research or complicated programming on a Microsoft machine...
There is an option to save before running within VB. Set it by going to Tools, Environment Tab, "Prompt to save changes." Choose the save changes option every time and this will never happen again. There are some instances when I feel it is best not to save before running. This is why I don't select the "Save Always" option. You may just want to save always. Also, if you are developing on Win95/98 or Millenium, Get Win2K, NT or XP and this type of thing won't happen (unless you really screw something big up such as hit stop while subclassing).
Tripack's right - if you're doing development, don't fool around with the "mom and pop versions" like W9x and Wme. If you're trying to do professional work, get a professional OS - W2K or WXP (even the older NT 4 was completely stable - I never had a crash in over 4 years of using it and I did a lot of development and heavy work on it). And make sure you have the latest service packs installed. Unix zealots claiming it's any better developing in the Baskin and Robbins of unix flavors than a solid W2K/XP environment are smoking their print outs.
I am running Windows 2000. It is rock-solid. Unfortunately this is probably my fault as I tried overclocking my computer 1mhz faster the other day (BUS SPEED). That was purely stupid -- I've gone back to the default setting now. I need a new system. Ps: I've reprogrammed what I lost and successfully saved it. Time heals all wounds.
It 's hard for the rest of us to relate to 30 minutes of your brainwork aphie, it's a nanosecond of our time I can't tell you how much I cracked myself up with that one. But it had to be done. A whole page of posts had transpired and no one had ridiculed you for your existence. I just couldn't handle the decency anymore and had to put a stop to it. Hey, no need to thank me - the look on your face is thanks enough.