A problem with Common Dialogs in IDE.

[Chris Boss]

I have been having a problem lately with the PB 6.0 IDE
failing to display the Open/Save Common Dialog when I use the
Files menu in the IDE.

I haven't had the problem before and I know that it is
NOT a bug in the IDE, since the same thing has happened a few times
with Microsoft OutLook.

If I select a menu option that should display one of the common
dialogs (Open or Save), the Dialog simply doesn't appear. The
problem doesn't occur all the time, but just intermitantly.

Is it possible that some program I installed recently installed
either an old or bad version of the Common Dialogs DLL and how
can I tell if this is so ?

I couldn't find any Common Dialogs download at the Microsoft web
site to try to update mine.

Has anyone ever experienced a problem like this before ?

I ran my virus software (Norton AntiVirus) and it doesn't
report any virus. Are there any virus' that it may not report
that could cause this problem ?




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[Semen Matusovski]

Chris --
1) To update common controls - see http://support.microsoft.com/support.../Q186/1/76.ASP

2) It looks that you installed something and this program incorrectly changed a DLL.
Look release info in Explorer.



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E-MAIL: [email protected]

[Chris Boss]

Semen;

I was talking about the Common Dialogs DLL, not the
common controls DLL.

Do you no where I can download the latest Common Dialogs
DLL ?


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[Semen Matusovski]

Chris --
About separate comdlg - no idea, but
1) it's a part of Windows's distributive.
For example in Win2000, I386 there is COMDLG32.DL_
(this is a cabinet file; so - extract COMDLG32.DL_ )
2) Today I redownload SP1 for Win2000 (Russian) and received latest release (July).




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E-MAIL: [email protected]

[K Peel]

Chris;

Usually, any signifigant download from M$ includes vital system files, in fact, to keep right up to date, IE(?Whatever?) has all the latest quirks (and bugs) you want!

If all else fails, try that!

Regards,

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Kev G Peel
KGP Software
Bridgwater, United Kingdom.
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>
http://www.kgpsoftware.com

[Chris Boss]

I really need help with problem !

The Common Dialogs (open/save file) have been failing
intermitantly in a variety of applications. MS Outlook,
notepad and PB IDE (6.0).

They just don't appear, when you select "Open" from the file menu.
I have to exit the app and then the Dialog works again. But it
will eventually fail again.


I got a clue, because my WinZip 8.0 also experienced the
problem with the Open Dialog, but Winzip must test for errors
when using the Common Dialogs and it displayed the following
error message:

CommDlgExtendedError
65535

This turns out to be :

%CDERR_DIALOGFAILURE

in the MS API docs. They suggest the Dialogbox function used in the
common dialog, was passed a bad window handle. Likely they must mean
the parent handle. So the Dialog failed to be created.

Now, my question is , why have I never had this problem before with
any of the above apps and then now all of a sudden, a bunch of apps
are having fits with the Common Dialog ?



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[Lance Edmonds]

Low resources? Do you have a resource monitor/meter running?

It could also be a corrupted system file, or some other app you have running in the background.

Maybe you need to "clean your windows" by reinstalling to a clean directory. It always amazes me how much faster my system becomes when I reinstall Windows and just the necessary file from scratch...


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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Sven Blumenstein]

I agree with you, Lance.

This would be the best solution :

x& = shell("format c:\ /u /autotest")

[This message has been edited by Sven Blumenstein (edited November 30, 2000).]

[John Kovacich]

Chris, I have seen a similar problem in the past couple days. A
co worker could not open any icons, or start any jobs. I never
determined the actual cause, but on the affected system, it seemed
to be connected to the use of the MS Office Toolbar. (At least,
the problem went away when I closed the toolbar). Another tech
suggested (which I can not verify) that it may be related to a recent
update to McAfee virus scan.

BTW, the problems I have seen this week are all on NT 4, sp 5.

John Kovacich.


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[Chris Boss]

John;

I have "Norton Anti Virus" and I regularly update it via
the Internet.

My "gut feeling" is that I installed something in the last
few months that over wrote a system file that effects the
Common Dialog DLL. I reinstalled the original Common Dialog
DLL from my WIN95 CD, but it didn't help.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this ?


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[Lance Edmonds]

Did you check the amount of free resources as I suggested earlier? You did not comment on this...

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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Chris Boss]

Lance;

I ran the resource monitor and there doesn't seem to be a problem.

I used depends.exe to see what DLLs the Common Dialog DLL depends
upon and it doesn't use anything other than user, kernal and GDI,
but it is possible that the Common Dialog loads some dlls via
LoadLibrary (like the common controls), which means they won't show
up in depends.exe.

Likely, it is one of the "other" DLLs, that the common Dialog DLL
accesses that has been changed. I never had this problem before,
but now it occurs quite often (about a month or so).

I periodically install new apps regularly from stuff I download
via the web. I always run virus scan on them, but it doesn't mean
they won't modify a system dll when I install them.

Some of the apps I have loaded lately (demos via the web) are :

DarkBasic

BlitzBasic

Basic 2000

Meta4GL

IMS Dwarf


There are some other small apps, but usually they are unzipped and
simply run, not installed.

As I mentioned, the problem is not caused by the PB IDE. Its just
that the PB IDE is just one of many apps that experience this
quirk with the Common Dialogs. Even Notepad and MS Outlook are
affected by this quirk.



[This message has been edited by Chris Boss (edited December 01, 2000).]

[Semen Matusovski]

In similar situations much faster to do "crean" installation.
As I remember my work under 95, I re-installed OS every 4-5 weeks, mainly because of installation additional programs
(somewhere occurs conflicts).
Typically, it's important to save Mail, address book + some ini files only.


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E-MAIL: [email protected]

[Charles Dietz]

Chris,

Perhaps you could try to close all programs except explorer from the
'Close' dialog box that is brought up by the 3 finger salute before you
try it. That would at least exonerate any program loaded in memory that
might be interferring somehow. Norton crash guard would be one of my
prime suspects.

Other than that, you might have to re-install Windows. After you get
your system working properly again, I wonder about some of the software
that is advertised to maintain your critical system files and drivers.
Anyway, I am fascinated by this problem and hope to learn from it.


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[John Kovacich]

Does Win95 have sfc? or was that introduced with Win98?

You said you periodically install apps, and listed a few. Does this
mean you periodically uninstall them as well? Could you be looking at
a bad uninstall (still resulting in an out of date dll) instead of
an overwritten dll?

Maybe you can reinstall VB (forgive me) and see if it loads a working
common dialog.

John Kovacich

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[Chris Boss]

I think I found a "possible" cause for the problem !

I was searching my harddrive and checking OS files for mismatched
files. I came across a Folder (of of Programs) called DCOM98
.

There was a subfolder off this one called OldOle.

There was an Uninstal.exe program in the OldOle folder, so I ran it.

I think this restored my old OLE OS files, which may have been
overwritten by some program that installed DCOM.

DCOM is a newer version of COM.

I have a gut feeling that I installed a program that requires the
latest DirectX stuff (I also installed a while back DirectX 7)
and it included the new DCOM.

Since, I am running Windows 95, it may be possible that DCOM for WIN 98
may not work well.

So far, the PB IDE seems much more stable now !

I loaded a bunch of bas files in the IDE and the Common Dialog didn't
choke, like it did before.

I'll see how things go over the next few days to see if the
problem is really gone and report back once I am convinced it
is gone.

Has anyone else ever had problems with DCOM (98) on a WIN 95
machine ?



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[Chris Boss]

Well, I was wrong !

My PC still has the problem I posted about.

I have also notice a good bit of instability when using IExplorer 5.0.
It locks up quite often. Makes me wonder if I am having a hardware
problem. Would it be possible for a hardware problem (ie. Video)
to cause the problem with the Common Dialogs ?

The locks up with IExplorer likely could be my video adapter.

I am getting tempted to simply reinstall everything (including OS)
but I don't have the time to go through all that.


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[Tom Hanlin]

It seems unlikely that a driver would cause problems with your dialogs. It seems more likely that MSIE is the problem. You might want to upgrade to the latest 5.5 and patches. Note that I have seen MSIE 5.x cause serious problems on some Dell systems, although we use it on a wide variety of machines at PowerBASIC with no obvious trouble.

(Dell claims it's all Microsoft's fault. Yeah, maybe...)

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Tom Hanlin
PowerBASIC Staff