Re: Error opening & saving attachments in OE6

[I am] on assignment with a technical university located at the corner
of the world (in the South Pacific region).

Yes, in Papua New Guinea, I assume by your headers. I fully understand the time difference.

Your last post (02 Mar 2009 09:02:48 +1000) showed up here as soon as I sync with the newsserver. Unfortunately, that has not been the case for many posts in the past week or so. The problem is/was not on your end or my end but on Microsoft's end.

I rule out O/S reinstallation

Unfortunately, that or a Repair Install may be your only option.

...and have a question: can uninstallation of the
present up-to-date IE7 (and OE6) proceed smoothly?

Yes, it should, done properly...but you'd have to uninstall SP3 before you'd be able to uninstall IE7 (hence my question #1a). See http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/05/05/ie-and-xpsp3.aspx

Done properly, uninstalling SP3 and then IE7 should not affect any OE files.

...Can re-installation of IE7 be no problem?

Yes, assuming it's also done properly. Afterwards, of course, you'd need to install SP3 again and then all critical security updates released since June 2008.

Will this solve the present OE problem?

I'd very much doubt it.

Best of luck!
--
~PA Bear

WK wrote:
One of the answering contributors made a mention about a 45-hour delay: I am
an European, on assignment with a technical university located at the corner
of the world (in the South Pacific region). There is a natural time-zone
difference between my place and the US: only w.r.t. the UTC, I am 10 hrs
ahead, so, many more hours need to be added to get a time difference between
us. Prolonged power failures also contribute immensely to the delay (yes, I
run my system via a UPS and am not subjected to "improper shutdowns").

Re. your questions:

Re 1a - IE7 was installed a day after it was released. SP3 was installed a
day after it was released.
Re 1b - I listed all my FREE anti-malware applications in an earlier post. I
have only Windows firewall. None of these applications were running when I
was installing IE7 & SP3.
Re 1c - I have always stayed far from Norton & McAfee [I have used since the
beginning of this PC (3 years back) the free AVG - an excellent product]. My
PC was custom-built according to my specs & requirements. No bloatware. Only
the OEM O/S, MS Office 2003, and AVG were installed.
Re 2a - I reported earlier: can't save, can't open.
Re 2b - No
Re 3 - The culprit was (I am sure) PartitionMagic. An expert expanded
properly my C: drive at the cost of shrinking its "partner" (the D: drive).
The operation was carried out in 5 correct steps and everything was
confirmed to be OK. Also everything worked perfectly (as always before)
after the partition resizing. The expert did not warn me or say anything
when I told him that I would uninstall PartitionMagic. I did it after he had
left. I only remember that the unistaller offers 2 types or modes of
uninstallation - I used the complete one. After that, plenty of missing
shortcuts and other damages followed. I spent 2 days in reinstalling (some
of) the damaged applications. I am sure that the OE problem started at the
same time, although I noticed it later.

I rule out O/S reinstallation and have a question: can uninstallation of the
present up-to-date IE7 (and OE6) proceed smoothly? Can re-installation of
IE7 be no problem? Will this solve the present OE problem? Or, can you still
see a less troublesome solution?
Thank you.
Kind regards,
WK
==========================================
"PA Bear [MS MVP]" wrote:
1a. Did you install IE7 and/or WinXP SP3 recently? Which was installed
first, IE7 or SP3?

1b. What anti-virus application or security suite is installed and is your
subscription current? What anti-spyware applications (other than
Defender)? What third-party firewall (if any)? Were any of these
applications running in the background when you installed IE7 and/or SP3?

1c. Has a Norton or McAfee application ever been installed on this machine
(e.g., a free-trial version that came preinstalled when you bought it)?

2a. Can you Save (versus open) an attachment and then open the saved file?

2b. Does closing IE and OE, deleting Temporary Internet Files, and then
rebooting make any difference?

=> Control Panel | Internet Options | General | Browsing history | Delete
Temporary Internet Files | Delete files (press button)

Recently, I have installed and unistalled some programs. One of them
must have affected my OE6 and/or the registry.

3. What programs had you installed and uninstalled?

Repost:
Your injudicious use of multiple "Registry cleaners" (e.g., CCleaner;
CleanUp!, Registry Mechanic; RegistryProt 2.0) may have caused the
attachment problem (and, most likely, just about any other problems
you're
encountering). Read http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=28099 and draw
your
own conclusions.

Unless you have backups of all the Registry changes that were made by
CCleaner, CleanUp!, Registry Mechanic, and RegistryProt 2.0, I suspect
you're looking at a Repair Install (of Windows) or a format & clean
install, WK.
--
~PA Bear

WK wrote:
Dear Mr Dyer:

I have followed all the steps you suggested. Using a new identity does
not
help: the symptoms remain the same - no attachment can be opened, nor
saved.
BTW, I have always kept the TeaTimer disabled (I supervised several years
ago a B.Sc. project in ICT on Internet threats and protective measures).
Thank you and the others who confirm that the two files: iecont.dll and
iecontlc.dll are obsolete left-overs.
May I expect next advice as to how to try and resolve the problem?

1. Please do the following before posting another reply: OE Tools |
Options | Send | News Sending Format | Plain Text | Indent the original
text with [pick one of the three options]...

2. Don't worry about iecont.dll and iecontlc.dll being missing with IE7
installed. (Has nothing to do with your attachments problem.)

3. Please disable Spybot Tea Timer and leave it disabled until we're
done
here. See http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=32409

=> NB: If you don't fully understand what Tea Timer does and how it does
it, leave it permanently disabled.

4. I would not necessarily use Spybot, SpywareBlaster, and BISS Hosts
Manager. An excessively large hosts file can have unintended
consequences
on your browsing.

5. Your injudicious use of multiple "Registry cleaners" (e.g., CCleaner;
CleanUp!, Registry Mechanic; RegistryProt 2.0) may have caused the
attachment problem (and, most likely, just about any other problems
you're
encountering). Read http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=28099 and draw
your
own conclusions.

6. Having sorted through the above morass, see if my original suggestion
helps.
--
WK wrote:
Thank you for your fast response. I have studied it carefully. I always
allow OE to do its automatic compacting job after each 100 starts of it
(and
never interrupt the job). I perform almost daily all possible computer
maintenance procedures (using CCleaner, ATF-Cleaner, CleanUp!, Registry
Mechanic), and from time to time using Pagefile Defragmenter,
Diskeeper,
and
NTREGOPT). Before running Diskeeper, I always clean the Prefetch folder
deleting all .pf files and...
<SNIP>
My anti-malware protection "suite" comprises: Windows Defender, AVG
Anti-Virus Free, Spybot - Search & Destroy, Spyware Blaster, BISS Hosts
Manager, and Panda Anti-Rootkit. My RegistryProt 2.0 (from
http://www.diamondcs.com.au) is also always ON.
<SNIP>
I have not followed yet the steps you recommend. Why? When exploring
carefully my computer, I noticed something that stopped my intent to do
what
you say since missing are two files:

iecont.dll <File Missing>
iecontlc.dll <File Missing>

I do not know how this extra "discovery" affects the whole matter, but
my
feeling is that it does since the missing files seem to belong to IE.

I have naturally run sfc /scannow and this has not restored the missing
files. I have also searched the Web for the info re. both files, found
that
a lot of people report the same files missing, but not found any
convincing
explanation regarding these files. (BTW, I have the latest version(s)
of
MS
.NET Framework installed on my PC.)

In this situation, I would prefer first to obtain from you the relevant
info
about my "discovery" before I proceed to do what you suggest.

=================
"PA Bear [MS MVP]" wrote:
Your current Identity may be damaged, especially if its the default
Main
Identity. Try one or more of your accounts in a new Named Identity...

File | Identities | Add new identity

Assuming all is well (i.e., the behavior does not persist in the new
identity), (1) compact all folders in the old identity, (2) import
messages
from the old identity into the new one, and then (3) delete the old one
(File | Identities | Manage Identities).

To avoid such corruption in future:

- Don't use Inbox or Sent Items to archive messages. Move them to
local
folders created for this purpose.

- Empty Deleted Items folder daily.

- Frequently perform a manual compact of all OE folders while "working
offline". More at http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm

- Do not cancel Automatic Compacting, should it occur, and do not
attempt
to
close OE via Task Manager or shutdown your machine if Automatic
Compacting
is taking place.

- Disable email scanning by your anti-virus application. It can cause
corruption (i.e., loss of messages) and provides no additional
protection:

Why you don't need your anti-virus to scan your email
http://thundercloud.net/infoave/tutorials/email-scanning/index.htm

WK wrote:
I'm running XP SP3, IE7, OE6, all up-to-date. Several days ago OE6
worked
perfectly.

Recently, I have installed and unistalled some programs. One of them
must
have affected my OE6 and/or the registry. [I have a multiple
anti-malware
protection, so I rule out any infection, also because I do scans
daily.]

When trying to open any attachment in sent or received e-mails,
nothing
happens. When trying to save attachments, I get this message:
"There was an error saving one or more of the attachments" [The other
part
of the message is not copied since it is irrelevant with my huge free
disk(s) space and 3 GB memory.]
<snip>

.