silly IE / OE error on a client's PC

  • Thread starter Thread starter Falco98
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Falco98

I did (what should have been) a routine memory upgrade on a client's PC
today. I made the mistake of shutting it down without first doing a
normal restart to make sure everything booted up and ran like normal
first. When it first restarted with the additional memory in it, it
reported some sort of registry error, claiming 'a recovery was made from
a backup copy' (i didn't think to make note of exactly what it said).

After that, both PC-Cillin crashed, and some little component of the
Roxio suite. Everything else remained stable. Figuring the new stick
of RAM was bad, i tried restarting a few times, including once with only
the old stick in, but the startup crashes were consistent with each
restart (but no further mention of the registry corruption).

Then I noticed, when I tried to launch Internet Explorer, an "installing
components" dialog box popped up claiming 'Office is now installing
components for Publisher'. After about 5 seconds or so, it would go
away, and IE would load correctly. The thing is, it does this everytime
IE is closed and restarted. Then we tried OE; same thing, and it even
had to pop up the dialog and wait while clicking between messages. over
and over.

She does have Publisher installed, but claims she doesn't really need
it, but the 'add/remove programs' dialog mysteriously didn't have any
"remove" or "uninstall" buttons in it as i was expecting it to. Then
again, i'm not convinced uninstalling publisher would help much. I've
seen those 'installing components' windows pop up occasionally when
Office is misbehaving, but never in IE or OE. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
~Mike
 
Falco98 said:
I did (what should have been) a routine memory upgrade on a client's PC
today. I made the mistake of shutting it down without first doing a
normal restart to make sure everything booted up and ran like normal
first. When it first restarted with the additional memory in it, it
reported some sort of registry error, claiming 'a recovery was made from
a backup copy' (i didn't think to make note of exactly what it said).

After that, both PC-Cillin crashed, and some little component of the
Roxio suite. Everything else remained stable. Figuring the new stick
of RAM was bad, i tried restarting a few times, including once with only
the old stick in, but the startup crashes were consistent with each
restart (but no further mention of the registry corruption).

Then I noticed, when I tried to launch Internet Explorer, an "installing
components" dialog box popped up claiming 'Office is now installing
components for Publisher'. After about 5 seconds or so, it would go
away, and IE would load correctly. The thing is, it does this everytime
IE is closed and restarted. Then we tried OE; same thing, and it even
had to pop up the dialog and wait while clicking between messages. over
and over.

She does have Publisher installed, but claims she doesn't really need
it, but the 'add/remove programs' dialog mysteriously didn't have any
"remove" or "uninstall" buttons in it as i was expecting it to. Then
again, i'm not convinced uninstalling publisher would help much. I've
seen those 'installing components' windows pop up occasionally when
Office is misbehaving, but never in IE or OE. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
~Mike
Click to expand...

Sounds like when it restored the registry from a backup it restored from a
time before some of the things that are on the machine were installed,
which would explain why they don't show up in add/remove programs.

Try *installing* the programs (which, from your listed symptoms, would
include at least PC-Cillin, Roxio, and Publisher but possibly more) as it
would seem the parts are there but not registered, in what was the registry
backup but now the 'running' version, so when things try to reference them
they don't show as installed.
 
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