Internet Explorer and Outlook problems

[MrBurns]

I am from Austria, so my English is maybe not perfect. I also translated the error-messages.

I have reinstalled Windows (w/o formatting).

Now I have two problems:

1. Shortly after reinstalling Windows Outlook still worked. Later the send/receive funktion didnt work any more ( an error message like "this action cannot be executed" appered).

Now it is like this: When I open Outlook, about two seconds after the main window opens, a message about a OLE-registration error and that i should reinstall the program appears. I tried to reinstall office, but it didnt help. I even tried to delete all entries in the registry, which contain "office".

In the syteminformation no OLE-registration about outlook exists.


2. Internet Explorer always changes the search-option to "dont search in the Adress-bar". This causes, that no internet-sites can be displayed. At the beginning this setting only changed after rebooting, but now IE doesnt accept any changes in this setting anymore. Only if I first install IE 6 and then deinstall it again w/ "restore old windows configuration", IE works for a short time (but I still have to reset the setting after each reboot). Then, sometimes Explorer and IE error messages appear directly after booting (w/ IE its sometthing about an internal error, and that the actual window will be closed).

I use Mozilla at the moment to access to the internet. does anyone know, w/ which not IE Browser the mosts sites can be displayed (if I dont get IE working again)?

I have Win 98SE, Outlook 2000 and IE 5.

AMD Athlon XP 2700+
Epox 8rda+
Thermaltake Volcano 7+
2x256 MB PC2700
Creative GeForce 4 Ti 4800 (4600 Chip)
Chieftech Case
WD 80GB/8MB HDD
16x48 DVD-ROM
20x10x32 Burner

 

[MrBurns]

I have opened a internet site from the temporary internet files folder and after that Internet Explorer worked for a short time (but the setting was still "dont search in the Adress-bar"). I tried the same thing again, but this time it didnt work.

AMD Athlon XP 2700+
Epox 8rda+
Thermaltake Volcano 7+
2x256 MB PC2700
Creative GeForce 4 Ti 4800 (4600 Chip)
Chieftech Case
WD 80GB/8MB HDD
16x48 DVD-ROM
20x10x32 Burner

 

[unitron]

Have you tried clearing your Temporary Internet file folder, cookies folder and your history folder?

 

[MrBurns]

I tried this to clear this folders except the history folder, but it didnt halp at all.



IE works sometimes now, but only when the IE and Explorer error messages I described in my original post appear directly after boot up. It hasnt anything to do with the cookies/temp. internet folder, because this behavior started a long time after I cleared this folders.


I found a possible reason for my IE and Outlook problems in the German version of Toms Harware Newsletter. I didnt a find an English version of that, so I try to translate it:

"MS Internet Explorer can also be crashed with HTML

Not only via Javascript and ActiveX the Microsoft-Browser can be crashed or a hacker can get controll over it. Already with the help of only one HTML-commandline the for its security holes disreputable program can be stooped from working. According to a bug-report from Securityfocus the same programming error in the Windows-systemfile shlwapi.dll can also disable Outlook and Frontpage..."



What do you think about this? Could this be the reason for my problems?

AMD Athlon XP 2700+
Epox 8rda+
Thermaltake Volcano 7+
2x256 MB PC2700
Creative GeForce 4 Ti 4800 (4600 Chip)
Chieftech Case
WD 80GB/8MB HDD
16x48 DVD-ROM
20x10x32 Burner

 

[MrBurns]

I have ran sfc in safe mode.

I used this setting: search for changed files and search for deleted files. I also included the whole WINDOWS folder.

Internet Explorer works now (at least at the moment), but I had to restore the settings to default. The "search in adressbar" option still restores itself to "dont search in adressbar", but now IE also works w/ this setting. Maybe a different setting caused the problem. I also have tried to reboot my PC, but IE still works.

Outlook still doesnt work and reports the same error.



Details about what I did w/ sfc:



At first I must explain the date convention: I use the German version of win98, so I the file dates are displayed German version: 11.05.03 means May,11th,2003.



sfc found a few files which were replaced by newer versions, and also a few which were replaced by older versions. Some files were also replaced by the a version same version-number but w/ a different change date. I didnt replace files of the first kind, but I replaced files of the second and third kind. sfc also found a possible damaged mouse driver file, but I didnt restore it, because I dont have any problems w/ my mousedriver because of the same reason I also didnt restore a deleted mousedriver file. I didnt restore C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSVCRT.DLL because there were differnt versions of this file on the win98 CD (=the folder to which I copied the CD). The version number and size of this file didnt change, but the changing date changed from 04.05.01 12:05 to 19.03.03 09:50. The files C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\drivers\Entech.vxd and C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\drivers\PciBus.vxd changed, but the file-informations (version, date, size) didnt change. I didnt restore the files, because I didnt find these files on the win98 CD (I also used searched for files w/ text containing the filename). I also searched the HDD and the text of the .cab files in my nForce drivers setup directory, but I also didnt find these files there.



I will write the file information of the restored files in the following format:

path\filename//previous file version/previous file date/previous file size//actual file version/actual file date/actual file size//restored file version/restored file date/restored file size//file description from properties -> version window

Actual file version is the version the file had before I restored it.



I restored 3 files because the actual version older was than original version:

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\vidx16.dll//?/11.05.03/10KB//?/17.08.98/10KB//?/05.05.99/10KB//none
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\QUARZ.VXD//4.00.501/12.12.02/6KB//4.00.501/17.08.98/6KB//4.00.501/05.05.99/6KB//quartz Virtual Device (Version 4.0)
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MCIQTZ.DRV//4.00.96.072/12.12.02/12KB//4.00.96.072/05.05.99/12KB//4.00.96.072/05.05.99/12KB//ActiveMovie MCI Driver



I also found out, that there are still a few files from Gator left in the C:\Program Files\shared Files folder, but I already deinstalled that program. At least 2 folders which contain these files: C:\Program Files\shared Files\GMT and C:\Program Files\shared Files\CMEII



I have searched my registry for Entech.vxd and PciBus.vxd. Here are the registry keys I found:

Entech.vxd

My Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Doc Find Spec MRU\
Contains a String Value named f w/ the value "Entech.vxd".

My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SharedDLLs
Contains a DWORD value named C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\drivers\Entech.vxd w/ the Value "0x00000002(2)".

My Computer\HKEY_USER\DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Doc Find Spec MRU\
Contains a String Value named f w/ the value "Entech.vxd"


PciBus.vxd

My Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Doc Find Spec MRU\
Contains a String Value named h w/ the value "PciBus.vxd".

My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SharedDLLs
Contains a DWORD value named C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\drivers\PciBus.vxd w/ the Value "0x00000002(2)".

My Computer\HKEY_USER\DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Doc Find Spec MRU\
Contains a String value named h w/ the value "PciBus.vxd"



What I recognized: the values of the two files are in exactly the same registry keys. Also all registry keys w/ this two files also contain a value for the MSVCRT.DLL file, but there are also values for the last file in other keys. Another thing is, that the string values for both files are identical.

AMD Athlon XP 2700+
Epox 8rda+
Thermaltake Volcano 7+
2x256 MB PC2700
Creative GeForce 4 Ti 4800 (4600 Chip)
Chieftech Case
WD 80GB/8MB HDD
16x48 DVD-ROM
20x10x32 Burner

 

[MrBurns]

I was running AdAware once again, and the program found a few objects again, and among them there were also regidtry-keys and -values. But this time the deleting of these objects caused, that Outlook works again!


AMD Athlon XP 2700+
Epox 8rda+
Thermaltake Volcano 7+
2x256 MB PC2700
Creative GeForce 4 Ti 4800 (4600 Chip)
Chieftech Case
WD 80GB/8MB HDD
16x48 DVD-ROM
20x10x32 Burner