Java Runtime Environment Display Issues on NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200

The Java Runtime Environment (often called JRE, J2RE, Java Standard Edition, or JSE) is a set of software which allows your Windows system to run Java programs alongside your regular applications or within your web browser. Java is a programming language and software platform. Java applications run inside of a virtual machine which translates the portable Java code to native code on the host operating system. More information is available here.

On Windows, you usually use the Oracle (previously Sun Microsystems) version of the Java runtime (downloads available here), older versions available here. Note that there is a Microsoft Java VM (also called the MSJVM, or Microsoft VM), but because of a lawsuit from Sun, Microsoft is no longer allowed to distribute it. It can be downloaded from here and will still install into modern Windows versions, but it is quite old and unmaintained. There is also an IBM JVM (also known as J9), however IBM requires that you license it, so it is really only used internally or made available for IBM branded systems.

I’m currently running the current release of the JRE: Java 6 Standard Edition Version 6 Update 25 (build 1.6.0_25-b06). The issue I’m experiencing has appeared in many older releases which I was running under 32-bit Windows 7.

Basically what happens is that Java applications fail to display some contents of windows or controls. The objects which fail to be drawn correctly are different across various Java applications (ie. one might fail to draw the contents of a text box, another may fail to draw in a button caption, a third may not have any problems at all). However, for each application the same thing will always fail to be drawn no matter how many times you run it again (ie. the first application will fail to draw text box content, and this will happen every time the application is run). The buggy control will function normally even though you cannot see it’s contents (ie typed text will still be in the edit field, blank buttons can still be clicked). In a few cases the window is not functional at all (parts of the Java control panel even do this sometimes).

At first I thought my system was running out of handles, but Task Manager was able to load correctly with all of it’s window contents. Under Task Manager I was able to confirm that the Java process wasn’t using any resources excessively or doing anything else out of the ordinary. When I started troubleshooting the issue, I tried many different JRE versions, web browsers, and even a completely different installations of Windows 7. I also tried changing various settings under the Java control panel with no success. There were also not many other users who were reporting the same problem on the net, so it’s most likely not an issue caused directly by the Java Runtime.

I found that it would usually draw the missing content if I would minimize the window to the taskbar and then restore it (by clicking it’s icon in the taskbar). It also works sometimes if you drag the window onto another screen. As soon as the control refreshes or updates itself, the content will disappear again. You can keep minimizing and restoring the window over and over again in so you can view and interact with the missing contents…this can quickly become very annoying though!

Because the graphical content of the window is visible when it’s restored, it appears to be a problem with the display driver and some hardware accelerated graphics routines which Java uses. I tried lowering the graphics acceleration slider under the advanced display properties, but it didn’t have any effect (even at the lowest level).

I have an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 and am running the most current Windows 7 compatible driver release provided by NVIDIA (from their support/download page) for that adapter: version 9.6.8.5 (09/10/2006). The NVIDIA drivers and tools don’t provide many options which you can customize, I changed a few of the 3D options but none of them had any effect on the problematic Java applications.

The driver is old and will never be updated to fix this bug. From the sounds of their release notes, this version fixes many more significant problems in other programs, so downgrading to older versions of the drivers is probably a really bad idea. Java has used hardware accelerated drawing for a long time now, and you’d have to downgrade to a much older version which probably leaves you open to some nasty exploits. In the end it’s probably going to be easier to just replace the video adapter! The GeForce FX 5200 is old and was never a great video card anyway (I just use it because it was the cheapest AGP card I was capable of running Aero).

So for now the best solution is to use the minimize/restore trick for the Java applications that have problems, or replace the video card. If I have any more ideas or discover anything else, I’ll post it here!

Using the NVIDIA GeForce2 MX400 on 32-bit Windows Vista / Windows 7

The GeForce2 MX400 is an older NVIDIA graphics card which is no longer supported in Windows Vista or later versions of Windows (including Windows 7).

Windows Vista introduced a new display driver model (WDDM) which offers significant changes and improvements over the previous model (XPDM) used in Windows XP/2000/2003. WDDM requires advanced GPU features which are not available on many older graphics cards. Windows Vista can use XPDM drivers which means you can install versions of drivers which vendors have provided for Windows XP, but there are a lot of stability issues with most of them. Vista includes updated XPDM drivers for a limited number of legacy cards which are installed automatically work properly. For most legacy display adapters it will simply install the “Standard VGA Adapter” driver. This driver works fine for many things, but it ignores the extra features supported by many adapters (like multiple displays, larger screen resolutions, configurable CRT monitor refresh rate, and DirectX/OpenGL hardware acceleration).

The GeForce2 MX400 has decent enough features to be useful for regular users who don’t need a lot of GPU power (for gaming etc.). The problem is that the XPDM drivers for legacy NVIDIA display adapters included with Windows Vista only support the GeForce4 series or newer.  The GeForce2 MX400 is installed as a standard VGA adapter which cripples many of it’s capabilities.

Luckily, the Windows 2000/XP drivers provided by NVIDIA (version 91.31) work flawlessly in Windows Vista and Windows 7 without any modifications. Download the driver package here. The installation will fail if you try and run it, but you can extract the contents of the exe package to a directory using WinRAR. Open Device Manager (devmgmt.msc) and  expand the “Display Adapters” section, then update the driver for the “Standard VGA Adapter” (right click on it and select “Update Driver Software…”). Choose to manually select the device driver and then browse to the location where you extracted the NVIDIA driver files (you should see the ‘nv4_disp.inf’ file within the directory). Windows should find the correctly matching “NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400” driver and allow you to install it. Once you reboot the system the driver should work properly and support all of the adapter’s additional features. You can confirm that they are working correctly by running ‘dxdiag’ and checking under the ‘Display’ tab. All of the features listed under the “DirectX Features” section should be “Enabled”.

How to Remove a Network Driver that Locks Up Device Manager When You Attempt to Uninstall It

A typical fix for networking issues in Windows XP is to uninstall the device in Device Manager and then have Windows reinstall it by selecting “Scan for Hardware Changes”. Under Windows Vista and Windows 7 the network troubleshooter will do this automatically if you choose to reset the network driver. I don’t know the exact reasoning, but I suspect it is because of the interaction with the NDIS miniport driver.

Sometimes there is a problem with the drivers and they simply will not uninstall. When you try to uninstall or disable the device, Device Manager will stop responding until the end of time (or until you end the task). You can re-open Device Manager and try as many times as you like, but the same thing will happen every time. Afterwards Windows will usually also hang during the shut down process and never complete it.

The broken driver most likely has an outstanding IRP request which it never completes or cancels.

When I was doing contractor work one of my clients was specifically having this problem with the Intel wireless drivers on a lot of their systems. The driver could not be updated or reinstalled with Intel’s installer either, as it would also stop responding.

The solution is to disable the driver’s service entry so that Windows does not load it at all, and it will no longer have any open IRP requests which prevent it from being removed.

The first step is to obtain the name of the driver’s service entry. You can do this easily if you open the device’s properties in Device Manager and select the “Details” tab (other tabs may cause Device Manager to stop responding if you click them, but Details will work). Select “Service” from the drop down list in the middle of the Details property page. If you can’t access the Details tab in Device Manager, you can also use the command: ‘sc query type= driver group= NDIS’ to display all of the network drivers on your system along with their service name and obtain it from there.

Once that’s done open the system Registry Editor (regedit.exe) and navigate to: ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services’. Expand the ‘Services’ tree and look for a subkey underneath it with the driver service name we located in the step above. Select the driver service subkey and there will be a DWORD entry inside it named “Start”. Double click the “Start” entry and set it’s value to the number ‘4’ (decimal). Setting the value to 4 disables the service on startup.

After you reboot the system, the device should appear in Device Manager with a bang and you should have no problem uninstalling it.