Connectix products and conflicts with Mac OS 7.6

Several readers (including Gabe Anderson, Alan Barta and Aaron Marasco) alerted me to problems with Connectix Desktop Utilities (CDU) and Mac OS 7.6. Connectix has acknowledged this problem, which it says extends to Connectix PowerBook Utilities (CPU) as well. The following statement is on their web site:

"All versions of CDU and CPU are incompatible with Mac OS 7.6. The symptoms of the incompatibility are cosmetic: garbled video in the menu bar, windows, and dialog boxes. Because there are no work-arounds for this incompatibility, users of MacOS 7.6 need to remove or otherwise disable CDU/CPU. At this time Connectix does not have any updates planned for CDU or CPU..."

The same page also offers the following comment about MODE 32:

"Mac OS 7.6 is not compatible with the Mac II, IIx, IIcx, or SE/30. Since Mac OS 7.6 does not run on these systems, Connectix MODE32 cannot install nor function. MODE32 version 7.5 continues to function on all versions of System 7 prior to Mac OS 7.6."

Finally, reader S.W. Achramowicz reports a possible Mac OS 7.6 conflict with Connectix' Color QuickCam. He writes: "Upon reinstalling my Color QuickCam Software (2.1a) on my Power Mac 8500 with System 7.6, I crash immediately upon the load of the QuickCam extension, according to Conflict Catcher 3.0.4." The problem does not occur with System 7.5.x.