holdenweb
asked on
Explorer windows display %THISDIRNAME%, various other oddities
I'm running Windows 2000 Professional, and after some time (no fixed length of time, it seems to me) my environment seems to get screwed. When I open any Windows explorer window I see the string %THISDIRNAME% where the name normally appears - the path is correctly shown in the title bar and in the address entry area.
Once thisw occurs certain other strange things tend to go along with it. From that point on Norton AntiVirus will frequently hang when scanning outgoing mail messages, and TextPad will complain about being unable to find a needed registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software
I've scanned for viruses, ad-ware and anything else I can think of, I've used Norton Disk Doctor and One-Button checkup to try and find out what's causing this, all to no avail. While I'm an experienced computer user, I don't consider myself fully up to all the goings on underneath the hood in Windows, and I don't have an infinite amount of time to work on this, so expert assistance would be welcome. Replies from people who know what the problem *is* will be much more helpful than suggestions to try possible rememdies, thoguh if I have to experiment in that way I guess I will. I tried to allocate 675 points to this question. The system won't let me, but it gives you an idea about how much this is bugging me!
Help!
Once thisw occurs certain other strange things tend to go along with it. From that point on Norton AntiVirus will frequently hang when scanning outgoing mail messages, and TextPad will complain about being unable to find a needed registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software
I've scanned for viruses, ad-ware and anything else I can think of, I've used Norton Disk Doctor and One-Button checkup to try and find out what's causing this, all to no avail. While I'm an experienced computer user, I don't consider myself fully up to all the goings on underneath the hood in Windows, and I don't have an infinite amount of time to work on this, so expert assistance would be welcome. Replies from people who know what the problem *is* will be much more helpful than suggestions to try possible rememdies, thoguh if I have to experiment in that way I guess I will. I tried to allocate 675 points to this question. The system won't let me, but it gives you an idea about how much this is bugging me!
Help!
Hi holdenweb,
Check your system environment path setting:
Right-click My Computer/Properties and go to the Advanced tab.
Click Environment Variables and edit the Path in the bottom of this window (may have to scroll).
Double-click PATH and go through the Variable Value field making sure there are no variable paths listed.
IE Instead of C:\%systemroot%, you would use C:\Windows (or C:\winnt).
Click OK once that's cleared up - reboot and see if it returns.
You may also want to try Start->Run->SFC /Scannow <enter> (have your CD ready)
~sirbounty
Check your system environment path setting:
Right-click My Computer/Properties and go to the Advanced tab.
Click Environment Variables and edit the Path in the bottom of this window (may have to scroll).
Double-click PATH and go through the Variable Value field making sure there are no variable paths listed.
IE Instead of C:\%systemroot%, you would use C:\Windows (or C:\winnt).
Click OK once that's cleared up - reboot and see if it returns.
You may also want to try Start->Run->SFC /Scannow <enter> (have your CD ready)
~sirbounty
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ASKER
Maybe I'm not explaining myself well?
Shivsa: since I'm getting updates to Norton AntiVirus I'm not quite sure why an on-line product would recognire malware when norton wouldn't. Do you know of a specific attack that causes this problem?
Sirbounty/Wtrmk74: Since Explorer works perfectly OK until after I've been logged in some time, I'm not sure why you are recommending changes to my setup. The problem is not (as far as I can tell) the way my system is set up, but something that happens to it after it's been running some time. I want to *fix* the problem, not work around it.
All:
I had already tried a couple of the adware removal programs, which only detected cookies and other non-active problems. I could look at all thirteen recommended options, but I'm reluctant to do that unless somebody has actually seen this problem before. I've spent too long already stabbing around in the dark! ;-)
I have already run Microsoft's SFC/scannnow a couple of times with no problems detected, so thanks for that suggestion, but it doesn't seem to detect what's going wrong.
The key, I suspect, is that a whole bunch of registry entries under HKEY_CURRENT_USER become invisible for some reason that I cannot fathom.
Thanks for the attempts so far, but I think we need to look a bit deeper :-(
Shivsa: since I'm getting updates to Norton AntiVirus I'm not quite sure why an on-line product would recognire malware when norton wouldn't. Do you know of a specific attack that causes this problem?
Sirbounty/Wtrmk74: Since Explorer works perfectly OK until after I've been logged in some time, I'm not sure why you are recommending changes to my setup. The problem is not (as far as I can tell) the way my system is set up, but something that happens to it after it's been running some time. I want to *fix* the problem, not work around it.
All:
I had already tried a couple of the adware removal programs, which only detected cookies and other non-active problems. I could look at all thirteen recommended options, but I'm reluctant to do that unless somebody has actually seen this problem before. I've spent too long already stabbing around in the dark! ;-)
I have already run Microsoft's SFC/scannnow a couple of times with no problems detected, so thanks for that suggestion, but it doesn't seem to detect what's going wrong.
The key, I suspect, is that a whole bunch of registry entries under HKEY_CURRENT_USER become invisible for some reason that I cannot fathom.
Thanks for the attempts so far, but I think we need to look a bit deeper :-(
I'd suggest creating a new user and see if it follows you (or recreating your profile)...
Still not sure I fully understand what's going on here tho...
Still not sure I fully understand what's going on here tho...
ASKER
Further information:
I just opened regedit to examine the registry. On looking at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software
"Cannot open Software. Error while openeing key".
Does this ring any bells? I'm beginning to thin that creating a new user might be the only way out ... I don't understand it either. Maybe I should be looking for the source of the registry corruption?
I just opened regedit to examine the registry. On looking at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software
"Cannot open Software. Error while openeing key".
Does this ring any bells? I'm beginning to thin that creating a new user might be the only way out ... I don't understand it either. Maybe I should be looking for the source of the registry corruption?
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ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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ASKER
Shivsa:
It's rather annoying that the URL you gave appears to be the only reference to this problem, despite the fact that they make it sound like a well-known problem: "the famous registry hive unmounting bug". I have Googled around it and run searches on Microsoft's site for ages, and haven't come up with anything fresh. System Mechanic's registry cleaner did find 603 errors that Norton had missed, so it was worth running it. I'll see how things go for a couple of days.
Thanks for your help.
It's rather annoying that the URL you gave appears to be the only reference to this problem, despite the fact that they make it sound like a well-known problem: "the famous registry hive unmounting bug". I have Googled around it and run searches on Microsoft's site for ages, and haven't come up with anything fresh. System Mechanic's registry cleaner did find 603 errors that Norton had missed, so it was worth running it. I'll see how things go for a couple of days.
Thanks for your help.
Just to clarify !
when you open Windows Explorer in the left pane where the folders view is... you are seeing %THISDIRNAME% in place of the actual directory names !
:) ?
when you open Windows Explorer in the left pane where the folders view is... you are seeing %THISDIRNAME% in place of the actual directory names !
:) ?
ASKER
Correct. It's clearly a part of the dynamic ZHTML interface that's used in the web-style interface.
RUNDLL32.EXE - Microsoft’s "Run a DLL as an App". RUNDLL32 is the Microsoft Windows program that need to be used to load DLLs into memory so that they can be used by specific programs or by Windows.
REGSRV32.EXE - Microsoft's application used to register dynamic-link libraries and ActiveX controls in the registry.
TRY THESE COMMANDS:
rundll32 \WINNT\System32\shell32.dl
regsvr32 /i Shdocvw.dll - Used by Windows applications to add web, file, network and document browsing capabilities
regsvr32 /i Msjava.dll - This file provides the COM support for Java programs to runin Windows operating system.it translates all Java method invocations in the class into calls to the COM class
regsvr32 /i Actxprxy.dll - Active X Components
regsvr32 /i Oleaut32.dll - Contains OLE related functions
regsvr32 /i Mshtml.dll - Contains HTML related utility functions
regsvr32 /i Browseui.dll - This file contains functions and resources like Bitmap icons used in internet browser
regsvr32 /i Shell32.dll - Contains the Windows Shell API functions used to open web pages and documents and to obtain information about file associations
:)
wtrmk74
REGSRV32.EXE - Microsoft's application used to register dynamic-link libraries and ActiveX controls in the registry.
TRY THESE COMMANDS:
rundll32 \WINNT\System32\shell32.dl
regsvr32 /i Shdocvw.dll - Used by Windows applications to add web, file, network and document browsing capabilities
regsvr32 /i Msjava.dll - This file provides the COM support for Java programs to runin Windows operating system.it translates all Java method invocations in the class into calls to the COM class
regsvr32 /i Actxprxy.dll - Active X Components
regsvr32 /i Oleaut32.dll - Contains OLE related functions
regsvr32 /i Mshtml.dll - Contains HTML related utility functions
regsvr32 /i Browseui.dll - This file contains functions and resources like Bitmap icons used in internet browser
regsvr32 /i Shell32.dll - Contains the Windows Shell API functions used to open web pages and documents and to obtain information about file associations
:)
wtrmk74
ASKER
Thanks to everyone for their assistance on this thorny problem. After running a bunch of registry cleaners and malware removers I am happy to say I haven't seen this problem for at least a couple of weeks. Unfortunately due to its intermittent nature it isn't possible to say exactly what cured it. I would like to know how many other users have had this "well known" problem.
Hope the split is satidfactory to all who contributed.
Hope the split is satidfactory to all who contributed.
online virus scanner:
---------------------
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
http://security.symantec.com/
http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/com/activescan_principal.htm
http://www.pcpitstop.com/antivirus/default.asp
also update spyware/adware and then run again.