Active Desktop problem

[Phillip Windell]

I have a use that when she tries to change the Theme of the destop, or
pretty much do anything with the Desktop the following error comes up:

-------------------
Internet Explorer cannot find the Active Desktop HTML file. This file is
needed for your Active Desktop. To turn off Active Desktop, click OK.
-------------------

I suspect it may be the result of a WU patch but have to way to find that
out or track it down.

The machine is:
XP SP2
All Patches are updated
IE is the original that comes with XP

 

[Haggis]

I have a use that when she tries to change the Theme of the destop, or
pretty much do anything with the Desktop the following error comes up:

-------------------
Internet Explorer cannot find the Active Desktop HTML file. This file is
needed for your Active Desktop. To turn off Active Desktop, click OK.
-------------------

I suspect it may be the result of a WU patch but have to way to find that
out or track it down.

The machine is:
XP SP2
All Patches are updated
IE is the original that comes with XP

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q165475/

 

[Haggis]

I have a use that when she tries to change the Theme of the destop, or
pretty much do anything with the Desktop the following error comes up:

-------------------
Internet Explorer cannot find the Active Desktop HTML file. This file is
needed for your Active Desktop. To turn off Active Desktop, click OK.
-------------------

I suspect it may be the result of a WU patch but have to way to find that
out or track it down.

The machine is:
XP SP2
All Patches are updated
IE is the original that comes with XP

or maybe

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;193110

 

[Phillip Windell]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q165475/

That is only for IE4.0

You can't uninstall/re-install the default IE from the OS in XP.

 

[Phillip Windell]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;193110

This is also for IE4.0

There is no IE CD to get the file the article mentions, because it is the
default installation of IE in XP. We did try to grab that file from another
working copy of XP (same SP & patches) and replace the potential bad one
with it,...but the problem persists.

 

[Phillip Windell]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q165475/

That article did make me think about something though. The Explorer folder
it mentions no longer exist in that location because it has been moved into
the user profile. So I tested to see it it effect other users on the sme
machine. It does not,...so I am going to copy the profile to a temp profile
using the User Profiles GUI then delete the original, have her log back in
to create a fresh one,..then copy from the temp profile back to it and see
what happens then.

 

[Haggis]

This is also for IE4.0

There is no IE CD to get the file the article mentions, because it is the
default installation of IE in XP. We did try to grab that file from
another
working copy of XP (same SP & patches) and replace the potential bad one
with it,...but the problem persists.

it says these apply thru to ver. 5.5 ...sorry about that ...ver. 6 is what
we're looking at..

I assume you have tried a "repair" of IE ?

have you tried to disable -reboot- enable active desktop ?

 

[Phillip Windell]

it says these apply thru to ver. 5.5 ...sorry about that ...ver. 6 is what
we're looking at..

I assume you have tried a "repair" of IE ?

There is no "repair" option because you have to do that thru Add-Remove
Programs and there is no entry for that when it is an OEM copy or IE that
comes with the OS. One article I saw said the only way to repair in that
case is to install the OS back over itself, but I don't want to risk all the
file version conflicts that might be caused due to all the patches that have
been added to the OS (the CD contents would be older than them).

have you tried to disable -reboot- enable active desktop ?

No but I did have another idea. See my other post. Probably in another 30
minutes or so I should know if it worked.

Thanks!

 

[Haggis]

There is no "repair" option because you have to do that thru Add-Remove
Programs and there is no entry for that when it is an OEM copy or IE that
comes with the OS. One article I saw said the only way to repair in that
case is to install the OS back over itself, but I don't want to risk all
the
file version conflicts that might be caused due to all the patches that
have
been added to the OS (the CD contents would be older than them).


No but I did have another idea. See my other post. Probably in another 30
minutes or so I should know if it worked.

Thanks!

there is this ...(you're right ..I don't really like the looks of it :> )
http://www.theeldergeek.com/repair_ie6.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=318378

I follow to find out your "idea " :>

 

[Phillip Windell]

Deleting and recreating the Profile worked.

The down side was that the User Profile Uility
(Properties My Computer, Advanced, Yadda, Yadda, User Profiles)
did not fully copy the entire My Docs and Mail Profile. So I lost the mail
Profiles, the PST file (which was bad!), and about 2% or 3% (not good
either) of the My Docs. I should have made a second manual copy of the
Profile from Windows Explorer, but I didn't think I had a problem at the
time.

But anyway the problem was the user profile, and creating a new one too care
of it.

Thank you sir! Even though the articles weren't specifically "it", they did
get me thinking in the right direction