jeisenberg
New Year's Eve
join:2001-07-06
Windsor, ON
 ·Cogeco Cable
 ·Cogeco Voip
2 edits |  [XPPro] STILL can't print from IE7, Outlook Express
Yesterday, I had problems printing from IE7 and Outlook Express. All other applications worked. I researched the problem and found many answers online (most involved re-registering DLLs).
Nothing worked, so I reinstalled IE7 from scratch. During the installation, it informed me that the old installation would be removed, and the new one would be installed. When it was complete, I was able to print again from IE and Outlook Express.
Then, since the originally downloaded installation was a bit old, the Microsoft Automatic Update started. After the automatic update was completed, I was again unable to print.
Could someone please help.
Thank you.
Edited to say my computer is clean (no viruses/spyware). |
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DOStradamus
MVM
join:2003-11-04
Santa Rosa, CA
| Re: [XPPro] Cannot print from IE7, Outlook Express after last up
"Unable to print" happens where?
•File -> Print does *nothing* -- no dialog box asking what printer, how many copies, etc... -OR-
•You can select that "ink guzzler" over there to print to, click OK, and then it does *nothing* -OR-
•An error message box shows up that says something arcane.
Can you print from other Microsoft apps, like Excel, or if you don't have that, WordPad (Windows Accessory)?
AND... look in your \windows\system32 directory, for comdlg32.dll... what's the size and date? That's the .dll for the "Common Dialog" control, that displays the "What printer, how many copies..." I mentioned before. It was updated recently, IIRC.
...then, we can proceed with the troubleshooting...
-NK
--
It's absolutely certain that any given database will eventually corrupt itself -- that's why we make backups.
Too much data in one place is absolutely corrupting -- that's why we have the Second Amendment! |
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jeisenberg
New Year's Eve
join:2001-07-06
Windsor, ON
·Cogeco Cable
·Cogeco Voip
| Your scenario #1 (FIle -> Print does *nothing*) is what I experienced. Also, when clicking Help -> About Internet Explorer, I get a completely blank popup.
Since posting my initial post, I again tried to reinstall IE7, but this time, the process stopped with an error (IE7 was not installed, or something to that effect). I wanted to uninstall IE7, but online forums indicated that I would first have to uninstall Service Pack 3; and for whatever reason, the NTUninstall Package for Service Pack 3 didn't seem to still be on my computer.
I thought that upgrading to IE8 might solve the printing problem, but it didn't, so I uninstalled IE8.
I was finally able to successfully reinstall IE7 by first uninstalling all the Microsoft Security Updates for IE. After that, IE7 was able to reinstall. So far, (about 24 hours after last reinstall), I can still print, and the common dialog boxes are still being displayed.
So, I'll let this thread die for now. Thank you very much for trying to help. |
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DOStradamus
MVM
join:2003-11-04
Santa Rosa, CA
| Just so we have a record of what works, get to a command prompt, and type this command in:
DIR \windows\system32\*.dll >\sysdlls.txt
then, if and when it printing goes South again, we can determine what files have been replaced.
Continuing Good Luck!
-NK
--
It's absolutely certain that any given database will eventually corrupt itself -- that's why we make backups.
Too much data in one place is absolutely corrupting -- that's why we have the Second Amendment! |
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jeisenberg
New Year's Eve
join:2001-07-06
Windsor, ON
·Cogeco Cable
·Cogeco Voip
| That's a great idea. I'll do that.
BTW, when things went south the first time, I checked my full system backups (I do one every day), and couldn't find any record of changes to that area of windows\system32, so I'm really stumped.
My comdlg32.dll is 271kb and dates to April 14, 2008.
Thanks again for your help. |
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DOStradamus
MVM
join:2003-11-04
Santa Rosa, CA | in that case, change "*.dll" to "*.*", and get *everything*..
Why not?
-NK |
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jeisenberg
New Year's Eve
join:2001-07-06
Windsor, ON | Nice icon you have. I miss DOS. |
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DOStradamus
MVM
join:2003-11-04
Santa Rosa, CA
| said by jeisenberg  :Nice icon you have. [thx!] I miss DOS. I don't:
-NK |
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jeisenberg
New Year's Eve
join:2001-07-06
Windsor, ON
·Cogeco Cable
·Cogeco Voip
| My wife made me throw out my collection of old 5.25 inch discs dating back to pre-PC days (my first home computer was an Apple II which I still have). My first "personal" computer was the PDP-8 I had exclusive use of in university back in the early 70s. |
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DOStradamus
MVM
join:2003-11-04
Santa Rosa, CA
| I used a PDP-8A (DEC "Classic"), back in '75... still have a few of the 8-inch floppies I bought for $10/usd each back then...
Mounted one on a plaque, with the caption "Can You Handle 8 Inches?" underneath...
-NK
--
It's absolutely certain that any given database will eventually corrupt itself -- that's why we make backups.
Too much data in one place is absolutely corrupting -- that's why we have the Second Amendment! |
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jeisenberg
New Year's Eve
join:2001-07-06
Windsor, ON | Looks like we're from a similar era.
Just turned 57 in May. Still work in the industry, as well as spending spare time programming my own pet projects. |
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jeisenberg
New Year's Eve
join:2001-07-06
Windsor, ON
·Cogeco Cable
·Cogeco Voip
1 edit | STILL Can't print from IE7, Outlook Express after auto-update
Last night, the Software Distribution 3.0 update ran at 3:00AM. Today, I can't print from IE7, the Help -> About IE box pops up empty, and the File -> Page Setup doesn't show up at all, and locks the browser.
This last behaviour was part of the original symptoms (i.e. it's not a new symptom), but wasn't really a concern to me since I don't use IE for anything except as a platform for Windows Update and (apparently) the print engine for Outlook Express.
I tried system restore to put my machine back to just-before the Software Distribution update; but Windows reports it's not possible to go back to that point.
Now, I'm really ticked off. I will be disabling automatic windows updates as soon as I fix the IE7 problem YET AGAIN.
Is anyone else having these problems? |
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jeisenberg
New Year's Eve
join:2001-07-06
Windsor, ON | Re: STILL Can't print from IE7, Outlook Express after auto-updat
(bump) - new info |
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auggy
Premium,Mod
join:2001-12-24
Brockville, ON | Give the following a try:
Start > Run > regsvr32 jscript.dll > OK
If problems persist can you check the version of the jscript.dll in the C:\Windows\System32 directory. |
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efflandt
join:2002-01-25
Elgin, IL
 ·AT&T Midwest
| auggy not sure if you answered when I asked about similar issues with IE 8 in Vista earlier, but we now have same issues with multiple IE 7 XP Pro PCs and with the IE 7 that worked for awhile in Vista after IE 8 was uninstalled.
Per something else I found in Start > Run I did separately:
regsvr32 mshtmled.dll
regsvr32 jscript.dll
regsvr32 /i mshtml.dll
First two appeared successful, last came up with an error that it loaded mshtml.dll but DllRegister entry was not found, MSHTML.DLL does not appear to be a .DLL or .OCX file. No difference.
So per instructions at Microsoft I tried resetting IE 7 (no change) and then totally reinstalled IE 7 (no change). No difference with all add-ons disabled.
IE 7 Help, About is still completely blank. And there is no print menu (nothing happens) when attempting to print maps from Mapquest, Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, but some other things can print. At least attempting to print does not lock up IE 7 like IE 8 did.
I wonder if this has anything to do with Windows Update KB969897 recently pushed in June, since that did something to the spooler, but why would that disable Help, About?
Everything works fine in Firefox including printing maps. |
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auggy
Premium,Mod
join:2001-12-24
Brockville, ON
·Cogeco Cable
Host:
Microsoft Help
| said by efflandt :Per something else I found in Start > Run I did separately: regsvr32 mshtmled.dll regsvr32 jscript.dll regsvr32 /i mshtml.dll First two appeared successful, last came up with an error that it loaded mshtml.dll but DllRegister entry was not found, MSHTML.DLL does not appear to be a .DLL or .OCX file. No difference. You could register the mshtml.dll with IE6 but once IE7 or IE8 is installed the mshtml.dll can no longer be registered so what you experienced is normal.
said by efflandt :IE 7 Help, About is still completely blank. And there is no print menu (nothing happens) when attempting to print maps from Mapquest, Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, but some other things can print. At least attempting to print does not lock up IE 7 like IE 8 did. I wonder if this has anything to do with Windows Update KB969897 recently pushed in June, since that did something to the spooler, but why would that disable Help, About? After installing KB969897 users with Microsoft Software Inventory Analyzer (MSIA) installed reported printing problems.
Also, I reproduced the blank "About IE" installing MSIA in a XP virtual machine.
So, if you have MSIA installed, try uninstalling it. |
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efflandt
join:2002-01-25
Elgin, IL
·AT&T Midwest
1 edit | said by auggy :After installing KB969897 users with Microsoft Software Inventory Analyzer (MSIA) installed reported printing problems. Also, I reproduced the blank "About IE" installing MSIA in a XP virtual machine. So, if you have MSIA installed, try uninstalling it. You could be on the right track. I have KB969897 update at home with without the printing and blank Help, About issues. All of the PC's at work have MSIA installed.
I did confirm that it had something to do with KB969897, because I turned on a PC at work that had not been used lately. IE 7.0.5730.11 worked fine even after Java update, but showed the above symptoms with blank Help, About after KB969897 update and reboot.
I'll try uninstalling MSIA tommorrow. It is totally useless anyway because it does not recognize OEM Windows licenses unless you manually enter license information.
PS: Confirming that uninstalling MSIA eliminated the IE 7 issues we had in all XP or Vista computers involved. |
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jeisenberg
New Year's Eve
join:2001-07-06
Windsor, ON
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1 edit | This may be my issue as well. I do have MSIA installed on the affected machine. After fixing IE7 for the last time, I disabled automatic updates. When I look at the updates that have been pushed (but not applied) since my fix, I see the following:
KB969897
KB938127
KB969898
I'm going to follow the advice here and uninstall MSIA, then (reluctantly) will allow the Microsoft Updates to be applied to see if it messes up IE7 yet again.
Keep your fingers crossed. |
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jeisenberg
New Year's Eve
join:2001-07-06
Windsor, ON
·Cogeco Cable
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| I uninstalled MSIA and applied each of the patches that had been previously blocked. After each, I verified that IE7 was still working properly. I applied KB969897 as the last update, and IE7 still worked after installing and rebooting.
So, I'm going to assume that the interaction of patches with MSIA was the root cause of my problem. I'll leave things as they are for the next day or two to verify that all is fixed.
Thanks, auggy, for that bit of wisdom, and thanks to all others who have contributed to this thread. |
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steve hill
@btopenworld.com | reply to efflandt
thanks I have been struggling with this for days, found kb969897 was culprit kept removing to solve problem, just uninstalled MSIA and printing back to normal.
cheers
steve |
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