Problem:
When opening a SimUText chapter, you notice that in certain pages of the chapter, the left-hand side of the application window has formatted text and instructions, but the right-hand side is blank except for a small blue square that contains a question mark.
Diagnosis:
There are two known possibilities for the cause of this symptom. One possibility, for Mac OS X or any version of Windows, is that your computer does not have the Adobe Flash Player installed. (This possibility only applies to versions of SimUText earlier than 2.1, released in Fall 2013.)
The other possibility, which applies only to systems running Windows XP, is that your computer is missing a DLL file that is required for viewing certain image formats.
Installing MS redistributable library on a Windows XP machine
This solution solves an issue on some Windows XP systems that do not correctly display some images. For instance, you may see a blue question mark icon instead of an image on the Welcome page of a SimUText chapter. (A handful of SVL labs are also affected)
To resolve the problem, you will need to install the Microsoft Visual Studio Redistributable package (which is a free add-on for the XP operating system).
Action:
Download and install the MS VS Redistributable package. You must have Administrator privileges for the computer.
1. Go here to download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=A5C84275-3B97-4AB7-A40D-3802B2AF5FC2&displaylang=en
2. Click the Download button for the 'vcredist_x86.exe' file
3. Save the file on your Windows XP computer's Desktop.
4. Click on the downloaded file to open it and then follow the prompts to install it. You do not have to restart your computer.
5. Launch SimUText again to confirm that you can now see images on the right-hand side of the pages where they were not shown before.