Error when Opening Control Panel

[Patrick Keenan]

I'm working on an XP Home system, which in general, works fine. The
requested work is done, but there's one leftover error I can't quite track
down.

When opening Control Panel (or when Explorer is pointing to a DVD drive and
the disc is removed, or switching between category or Classic view), the
search icon appears, and then a small error window appears that has to be
cleared to proceed.

The window title reads "Registry Error", and the text is "The system cannot
find the file specified". On Clicking OK, the window closes and Control
Panel opens properly and works as expected.

Unfortunately, the error messages don't give any helpful details, and I can
find no entries in the system logs. There are 36 items displayed in the
control panel, and they all seem to work properly.

Does anyone know where in the system I might find a listing of everything
Control Panel is *trying* to load so I can compare it with what actually
*does* load, and fix the error? I've looked in the HKLM\software....\cpl
and ...\namespace areas and they don't include everything.

Thanks!
Patrick Keenan

 

[Rich Barry]

Patrick, there is or use to be an issue with XP Control Panel and the
free program Easy Cleaner. Easy Cleaner works fine except
for it's registry cleaner which I think is a little to aggressive.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Patrick, there is or use to be an issue with XP Control Panel and the
free program Easy Cleaner. Easy Cleaner works fine except
for it's registry cleaner which I think is a little to aggressive.

Thanks - registry cleaners have not been used on this system, if that's what
you mean.

 

[Daave]

I'm working on an XP Home system, which in general, works fine. The
requested work is done, but there's one leftover error I can't quite
track down.

When opening Control Panel (or when Explorer is pointing to a DVD
drive and the disc is removed, or switching between category or
Classic view), the search icon appears, and then a small error
window appears that has to be cleared to proceed.

The window title reads "Registry Error", and the text is "The system
cannot find the file specified". On Clicking OK, the window closes
and Control Panel opens properly and works as expected.

Unfortunately, the error messages don't give any helpful details, and
I can find no entries in the system logs. There are 36 items
displayed in the control panel, and they all seem to work properly.

Does anyone know where in the system I might find a listing of
everything Control Panel is *trying* to load so I can compare it with
what actually *does* load, and fix the error? I've looked in the
HKLM\software....\cpl and ...\namespace areas and they don't include
everything.

Patrick, have a look at the list in the table on this page:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q313808

I would go to the system32 folder and double-click them all to see if
that Registry Error window appears. Next, double-click the other .cpl
files (e.g., javacpl.cpl) to see what happens. Hopefully you can narrow
it down to a particular component.

I did read the part where you said:

There are 36 items displayed in the control panel, and they all
seem to work properly.

Assuming all the shortcuts are correct, I guess you don't need to open
each one of them up from the system32 folder. But I did mention it in
case there is a corrupted or incorrect shortcut, so it might be worth a
try anyway.

Do you have anything in the control.ini file?

Perhaps Autouns can be helpful.