A carnival of error messages...

jill_valentine

So, my parents' computer is acting like a knob, and they're getting error messages all over the damn place.

I can't tell if they're all individual problems or whether there's one primary problem that's causing all the other stuff to go arseways. They're just kind of starting out on the information superhighway, so they're not too computer literate yet. I don't have the PC to hand at the minute so I can't give it's exact specs, but running XP.


Here's the most notable issues.

1) The printer, a Dell 922 All-in-One has decided it's a fax machine. A fax machine, and only a fax machine. It's very insistent on this issue, and no amount of cajoling it will make it want to do anything other than want to be a fax machine. Hitting Print tells me there's no printer installed, even though I can see it on the printer control panel. Asking it to bring up it's settings gives me a "This Operation Cannot Be Performed" message.

I've installed and re-installed the drivers a buttload of times but no joy. If I ask it to look for new printers, it can only find, you've guessed it, a fax machine.

2) Explorer keeps crashing without any pattern I can discern.

3) On start up, I get the first error message see below:

4) On trying to open anything MSWorks-ish, MSPaint-ish, or pretty much anything, I get the second error message seen below:



There's other stuff, apparently, but that was what I found in the five minutes I had with it and I'm already out of my depth. I assumed it was a virus or whatever, but I've tried a couple of scans and can't find anything beyond the usual bits of adware fluff.

I'll get more details when I can, I just wanted to see if anything rings a bell so far...

DonkeyStyle \o/

Well, it's about 12 years late, but I think skynet has finally become self aware.

Cuddlesworth

The error messages are related to the bad print driver, I think. The second one definitively is.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/246827

To properly remove the original drivers, go to start then run, then type "services.msc". Stop the print spooler service. Then go to start and open up the printers page. Right click anywhere on the blank area of the window and go to Server properties. Go to the drivers page and remove any drivers relating to the Dell printer. Then navigate to C\windows\system32\spool\drivers. Try find any folders or files relating to the Dell printer and delete them. That step might not be too important(as a reinstall should replace them).

Reboot, reinstall printer drivers and then start print spooler service if necessary. It should start up automatically on re-boot though.

Also, you never responded to my Visitor message. I'm shocked.

jill_valentine

Ha!

I'm deeply, deeply sorry for any offense.

The season has been busy for me at work, as you might imagine. Thanks, I'll give it a shot when I get to my parent's comp next.

An Fear Aniar

jill_valentine wrote: »

2) Explorer keeps crashing without any pattern I can discern.

For this one, install Firefox or Opera instead and see if they work better.


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Cuddlesworth

An Fear Aniar wrote: »

For this one, install Firefox or Opera instead and see if they work better.

Windows Explorer.

Windows Internet explorer.

Print Drivers are attached to nearly every app, when they go bad they take down a lot of other things with them.

yoyo

First one looks like reminents of a malware infection, run MBAM should clear it up

Nick

An Fear Aniar

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Windows Explorer.
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Like I said, it's a good idea to use a different browser like Firefox or Opera.

http://www.webdevout.net/browser-security#graphs-total


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