ID:194245
 
Yesterday evening I attempted to "upgrade" my version of IE from 5.0 to 5.5. Big mistake! Since that time I have spent approximately 12 hours attempting to correct the problem. I have reinstalled every version of IE currently available. I have run every diagnostic/repair program in existence. I have scoured the net for help. I have done everything short of reinstall my system, and will do that if necessary. But first I decided to call upon the attention of the most intelligent people I know .. unfortunately they were all busy so I come to you, the BYOND community! (j/k)

My hope is that someone has encountered this problem or some variant. After I "upgraded" IE it immediately started crashing with a Kernel32.dll in IEXPLORE error. It did this every time I rebooted. The internal windows explorer that displays the filesystem (and links to the same dll file) wasn't crashing, but everytime I entered a network address into the little address bar it would sit there.

Assumming this was some incompatibility with 5.5 I managed to downgrade it back to 5.0 but the problem remained. I then found a way to remove IE entirely so I could reinstall it fresh, and did so with 4.0, 5.0, 5.01, 5.02, 5.5, and 6.0. No dice.

At some point (it may have been from the start) I noticed something far worse .. not only was the external IE browser messed up, but my internal filesystem browser (which again uses the same dll) was in a sorry state. Currently it seems to require a network connection to work at all. If I am off the 'net, none of my files show up when I open a folder. Clearly this is some sort of local/global network problem, but for the life of me I can't find any settings to control this. When I open certain key files (like "Control Panel") I also run into a familiar script error: "Object doesn't support this property or method .. do you want to continue running scripts on this page?" WTF? The file browser also doesn't seem to be able to find any thumbnail images.

How does this affect you? We were supposed to do another release yesterday but with my computer in this sorry state it is nary impossible. So before I do a massive overhaul, I'm wondering if anyone has seen this irritating glitch before.

250 BYONDimes (good for one book) to the person who solves the problem!
Here's one possibility, but I'll keep looking:


This behavior can occur if a Control Panel extension (.cpl) file is damaged.

To resolve this problem, determine which .cpl file is damaged, remove the file, and then reinstall it. To do so, follow these steps:


1. Click Start, point to Find, and then click Files or Folders.

2. In the Named box, type "*.cpl" (without quotation marks).

3. In the Look In box, type "c:\windows\system" (without quotation marks).

4. Click Find Now.

5. Double-click one of the .cpl files. If the file is damaged, an invalid page fault occurs in Kernel32.dll. If an invalid page fault does not occur, repeat this step with each .cpl file until an invalid page fault occurs. The file that causes the error message to be displayed is the file that is damaged.

6. On the File menu in the Find window, click Close.

7. Delete or rename the damaged .cpl file in the Windows\System folder.

8. Open Control Panel to verify that it is functioning properly.

9. Extract a new copy of the .cpl file you removed in step 7 from your original Windows disks or CD-ROM.

In response to Gughunter
On 6/29/01 2:44 pm Gughunter wrote:

This behavior can occur if a Control Panel extension (.cpl) file is damaged.

I hadn't tried that, but unfortunately the .cpl files appear to be among the few thing on my computer that actually work.

I read a similar note about corrupted .pwl files and "fixed" that, but it didn't help either. Bah.

Thanks for playing!
In response to Tom
On 6/29/01 2:48 pm Tom wrote:
Thanks for playing!

I expect a re-install in your near future...
In response to Gughunter
On 6/29/01 2:52 pm Gughunter wrote:
Some other links:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q155/1/ 16.asp?FR=1
Yep, I read that one earlier. You found it about two hours quicker than I did though!


http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q180/7/ 27.ASP
Hmm .. doesn't seem to apply to my OS.


http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/stories/info/0,,000E3I,.html
I tried this one yesterday too. Cleaning up my registry (4 times!) didn't appear to fix anything.

You are very good at finding solutions though! Just finding these tidbits took quite some time for me.

Keep digging!
In response to Deadron
On 6/29/01 2:54 pm Deadron wrote:
On 6/29/01 2:48 pm Tom wrote:
Thanks for playing!

I expect a re-install in your near future...

I hate you Deadron!
In response to Tom
On 6/29/01 2:58 pm Tom wrote:
On 6/29/01 2:54 pm Deadron wrote:
On 6/29/01 2:48 pm Tom wrote:
Thanks for playing!

I expect a re-install in your near future...

I hate you Deadron!

yea that hapend to me too :( I got neoplanet (Netscape sucks). because I den't feel like wipeing my drive for a 10th time. I've tryed about every thing I cound think of other then wipeing my hard drive to fix it.
You're running the original version of Win98, correct? If a reinstall is necessary, perhaps Win98 SR2 would be better as it is supposedly much more stable. I installed IE5.5 on a pretty generic fresh install of SR2 without problems... But then the problem was likely to be that IE doesn't play nice with a well-used installation, rather than the Windows version. We can talk tomorrow if you're interested in this.

But yes, Windows does suck much.

One thing you could do to prevent this in the future is use VMWare under Linux for all your windows needs. No need to reboot between the two, and the Windows disk is kept as a regular file under Linux which can be backed up periodically. Probably more trouble than it's worth, and it doesn't help much if you don't have a good backup strategy under Linux anyway.

You might be able to setup something where you backup your Windows partition to polaris periodically (or more likely, C:\Windows, maybe C:\Program Files; not sure if you want to risk having sensitive Dantom info on there) whenever you're booted to Linux.

Other possibilities are drive imaging utilities that exist for Windows. Basically saves an image of your entire drive that can be restored if something goes crazy.
If it wasn't for the fact that you're the one in the developer seat, I would be taking this opportunity to taunt you mercilessly since I use Netscape.
In response to Leftley
On 6/29/01 4:09 pm Leftley wrote:
If it wasn't for the fact that you're the one in the developer seat, I would be taking this opportunity to taunt you mercilessly since I use Netscape.

I used to use Netscape...but 4.7 was the last reasonable release, and now that's starting to break on some pages.
In response to Deadron
On 6/29/01 4:12 pm Deadron wrote:
On 6/29/01 4:09 pm Leftley wrote:
If it wasn't for the fact that you're the one in the developer seat, I would be taking this opportunity to taunt you mercilessly since I use Netscape.

I used to use Netscape...but 4.7 was the last reasonable release, and now that's starting to break on some pages.

Well, I'm lazy, so while I have both Netscape and IE I hardly ever bother updating them. I don't even remember what version I currently have of either, but 96% percent of the pages I try with Netscape work just fine. Of the remaining 4%, half of them I wasn't particularly interested in in the first place, and the other half I just switch over to IE for. In general, I find IE a bit more reliable... except for the fact that Netscape doesn't do nearly as much damage when it goes down.
Well this is kind of strange. I removed the "external" IE completely and now the filesystem works fine (unless I try to access a networked url). I don't see how this could be the case since the external IE shouldn't affect the internal one (they access the same dlls which are required by this infernal OS). Even more strange, I can use the embedded IE browser in DS!

However, it doesn't work all that well, so I'm wondering if it is just my shoddy machine or something in the implementation. Can one of you try booting up DS, clicking on "Browse", going to this forum, and trying to login? I can do the first three steps, but logging in gives an error.

Thanks!

[Edit-- might be a javascript problem. Some of the configurations are wiped in my funky install. Damn windows.]
In response to Leftley
Well, I'm lazy, so while I have both Netscape and IE I hardly ever bother updating them. I don't even remember what version I currently have of either, but 96% percent of the pages I try with Netscape work just fine. Of the remaining 4%, half of them I wasn't particularly interested in in the first place, and the other half I just switch over to IE for. In general, I find IE a bit more reliable... except for the fact that Netscape doesn't do nearly as much damage when it goes down.

Yeah, I'm surprised that when I installed Linux and partitioned my hard drive, it didn't detect the "Microsoft" virus.
On 6/29/01 2:34 pm Tom wrote:

....everytime I entered a network address into the little address bar it would sit there.

I have this problem on one of my work machines that runs W2k. I'm too lazy to fix it, and I don't use that machine too much these days anyway.

Try this to satisfy my curiousity... if you still get the hang when typing in an address, make sure you prefix it with "http://"...

My version of the bug only hangs if you don't use the http preface. Weird, huh?
In response to Skysaw
On 6/29/01 4:37 pm Skysaw wrote:

Try this to satisfy my curiousity... if you still get the hang when typing in an address, make sure you prefix it with "http://"...

I still get the problem, unfortunately!

I think my system is stable enough so that I can at least compile without a full reinstall for now. After using IE for so long Netscape seems unusable, so I'm testing out Opera right now (2meg download! It must be the "BYOND of web browsers").

If anyone has insight on my problem though, I'd still love to hear it. The BYONDimes are still on the table!

[Edit-- Opera's pretty fast! Our javascript login popup doesn't work properly, but according to the documentation here Opera adheres strictly to the W3 standards so we must be doing it wrong anyway. This could be a blessing in disguise.]
In response to Tom
[Edit-- Opera's pretty fast! Our javascript login popup doesn't work properly, but according to the documentation here Opera adheres strictly to the W3 standards so we must be doing it wrong anyway. This could be a blessing in disguise.]

Good thing The (New) Spuzzum Domain is W3C Compliant.
In response to Tom
On 6/29/01 4:43 pm Tom wrote:
Our javascript login popup doesn't work properly, but according to the documentation here Opera adheres strictly to the W3 standards so we must be doing it wrong anyway. This could be a blessing in disguise.]

Speaking of which, I was trying to use the OmniWeb browser on Mac OS X, but it too failed on that window. I have no idea what their evel of support is though.