Browse/Save/Open dialog box broken 1

[dementg]

I have a Win2k SP4 system that seems to have a broken dialog box. I have installed IE6 SP1, MS Office 2000, Norton Antivirus, Tiny Personal Firewall, and installed all updates on Windows Update. I don't know when the problem appeared, but I didn't notice it until after everything was installed. The following are known examples of what won't work:

1) In IE6, if I click a link to a data file, it will show the "Open/Save/Cancel" message box. If I click "Open", it behaves as expected. If I click "Save", then the Saving File progress bar dialog box will momentarily flash on the screen and disappear. Searching the drive for the file reveals that it was not saved anywhere.

2) If I click Start->Run->Browse, nothing happens.

3) If I open MS Paint and select File->Open, nothing happens.

4) If I open Media Player 6.4, and select File->Open->Browse, nothing happens.

From looking at another system that works correctly, it seems that all these issues point to the same dialog box. There is a standard dialog box that is often used to browse for files, with the big "History", "Desktop", "My Documents", "My Computer", "My Network Places" buttons on the left side. That dialog box is apparently inaccessible on the problem machine.

There are no popup blockers installed. I have tried disabling the local firewall, and tried enabling/disabling norton antivirus.

I have tried reinstalling IE6, but it didn't fix anything. I have suspected that there's a broken .dll somewhere. So I used "Resource Hacker" on a working system to try to find the one responsible for that dialog box, and my best guess is its SHELL32.DLL. I compared crc-32 checksums with a working machine, and they match for both SHELL.DLL and SHELL32.DLL. I found many files that don't match, but a lot of those are surely the result of different software versions.

Does anybody know what resource file(s) are responsible for the dialog box I'm having an issue with? Any theories about why this dialog would consistently fail to appear regardless of which application tries to call it? Thanks.

 

[dementg]

I found a discrepancy in the CRC-32 checksum of NTDLL.DLL between the working system and the not-so-working one. Both files report the same version number but their checksums didn't match.

I was able to replace the file by using the recovery console from the boot CD. I rebooted and checked the CRC values, and confirmed that the file had been replaced. Unfortunately it hasn't had any apparent effect. The problem with that dialog box remains.

 

[bcastner]

Try:

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/foreignlang.htm

If no joy, download and run IEFix:

http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/IEFIX.htm

This will do things: re-register some common dialgoue DLLs, and do an SFC /Scannow
Reboot and test.

If still no joy, do a Repair reinstallation of the OS. If you have not slipstreamed your latest service pack, you will have to re-apply this. Be sure to head to Windows Update and become current on any hotfixes as well.

 

[bcastner]

You might also try re-registering an OCX:
regsvr32 C:\winnt\system32\comdlg32.ocx

 

[dementg]

Not much luck.

I checked the foreign language issue, but the file they mention isn't present (as its not supposed to be).

I was hopeful about the comdlg32.ocx issue. Microsoft's description for that file sounded perfect, and I found that it was missing on this system. However, installing it and registering it had no effect even after a reboot.

I compared crc-32 values of all the installed .OCX files with the working system, and there were no diffs.

I then started reregistering some dll's that were mentioned on another site, none of that helped.

At this point I rolled back my previous changes. I unregistered the comdlg32.ocx file and removed it. I also ran a CRC-32 on NTDLL.DLL from a 3rd working system, and found that it matches the one that *used* to be on the problem machine. So I restored the original version of NTDLL.DLL also.

I finally ran IEFix and it didn't fix anything either, but did revert to IE5 from the windows CD.

I then booted the install CD and ran the repair->check system files procedure. It informed me of what files had changed (probably due to security updates) and I told it to replace all of them. After rebooting, the issue still remains. I've probably dirtied up the install by now, and being a slow system I want it as clean as possible, so I think a clean reinstall is probably the best option at this point.


Thanks for all your suggestions. I learned something from them even if they didn't work in this case.