I have resolved my own question -- the problem had to do with DCOM
Access.
Apparently, in the course of some software installation, I added
myself
as an ordinary user, and since there was no INTERACTIVE user category
for everyone else to belong to, they lost various DCOM permissions,
such as
- sending email from Outlook
- following certain hyperlinks (in IE 6) that contained Java code
What a trap! The average home user needs to be aware of DCOM and
permission lists!
To resolve this, I searched in Google for the hyperlinks symptom, got
an
explanation, applied it, and noticed that *both* problems were fixed!
Here are the details:
Right-click on a certain hyperlink in IE6:
Error: 'dialogArguments.__IE_PrintType' is null or not an object
Code : 0
URL: res://C:\WINDOWS\System32\shdoclc.dll/preview.dlg
URL of article giving the fix:
http://radio.weblogs.com/0106046/stories/2002/08/13/resolutionForIeAndWindowsProblems.html
Text of the article:
-------------------------------------
Resolution for IE and Windows problems
Recently, I had described a problem that I'd been having with Win2K
and XP. I know that someone else must have this problem because I was
showing referrers from Google on various key phrases in the list of
symptoms. In summary, here's the symptoms again
I can't Print from IE anymore (I get the following message:
'dialogArguments.__IE_PrintType' is null or not an object.)
<a target="_blank">, <form target="blank">, and window.open() don't
work. window.open() fails with "access is denied"
I can't drag and drop files into any folder, my Desktop, an Explorer
window or Internet Explorer.
I can't open up the Search page from the taskbar Start menu.
Certain MSI installers now fail while initializing.
I can no longer save web pages from IE (File | Save As) - the error is
"the web page could not be saved to the selected location"
Outlook will no longer deliver new messages to my personal folders (on
my local hard drive), and if I'm operating out of my personal folders,
I can't send mail (the error is something like "the requested access
is not allowed" when I hit the send/receive button.
The disk defragmenter doesn't work (both the analyze and defragment
options).
When I try to debug a web application in Visual Studio.NET, I get an
error "Attaching the Script Debugger to process '[3972] IEXPLORE.EXE'
on machine 'WEAKLIEMG-XP2' failed. Error code 0x80070005"
It turns out that this is a known issue. KB article Q274696 at
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q274696
discusses a fix for this. Basically, the root of the problem is this:
If the list of Access permissions is empty, the system and interactive
accounts have implicit access rights. If a user or group is added to
this list, the implicit rights no longer apply and only the users
explicitly listed can have rights. This is a change in behavior from
Microsoft Windows NT 4.0. In Windows NT 4.0, the system and
interactive accounts maintained their access rights even though they
were not explicitly listed.
So the solution is to open dcomcnfg, go to the properties page for
Component Services | Computers | My Computer, go to the Default COM
Security page, under "Access Permissions" click "Edit Default" and
make sure that the local SYSTEM and INTERACTIVE users have "Access
Permission" with the "Allow" checkbox checked.
=======================
Clarification:
The solution is: Start->Run: dcomcnfg
Expand: Component Services | Computers | My Computer
Right click on "My Computer": Properties...
Select the tab: Default COM Security
under "Access Permissions" click [Edit Default]
if the INTERACTIVE user isn't listed, add it:
[Add...]
[Advanced...]
[Find Now]
Scroll to "INTERACTIVE" on the user list and click [OK]
[OK] (to Add INTERACTIVE)
Click INTERACTIVE (it's probably already selected)
Check the "Allow" box: Allow Deny
Access Permission [x] [ ]
[OK]
[OK]
REBOOT
Windows XP then "denied" all
Let me add my complaint to the chorus of others I've seen on this
newsgroup. Frequent readers will recall the symptoms:
On Win XP Home, I can send/receive email using Outlook just fine,
but my wife and kids cannot. They can send/receive test emails
from Outlook's Tools->Email Accounts... (o) View or Change Account ...
[Test Account Settings], but they get
"You don't have appropriate permission to perform this operation" when
they click on the Send/Receive button.
We all have "computer administrator" privileges.
I tried creating a new profile, as Mark Johnson did on 2003-07-06,
to no avail.
I tried creating a new user with fewer permissions, as another user did.
I turned on Tools->Options|Email [Advanced] "Enable logging" but I don't
know where the error messages are stored.
It's hard to say what brought this on. A stray "Windows Update"?
Installing new software? Is there some .dll that became unreadable
by some users?
