XP Pro SP2: Display control panel abruptly quits in Desktop tab/etc.

[scriabinop23]

Have a strange problem:

When in the Display properties control panel, most any choice within
the Desktop tab (ie changing background, hitting the 'Browse' button)
will abruptly exit the Display Properties control panel, of course not
allowing me to easily change the desktop.

Also in the themes tab, most any adjustment to themes will fail most of
the time (80% the control panel just quits, the remainder allows some
changes to go through).

Interesting to note, with the Themes service turned off, the control
panel still quits in the same way when in the Desktop background tab,
as well as themes tab. This indicates the problem must be some haywire
registry setting, as opposed to a corrupt theme, etc.

I am virus/spyware free. Besides a java machine, no third party apps
run residually. Have analyzed every component of the registry I could
find, comparing them to a good XP install.

Have also done the obvious (ie sfc /scannow), have done a reinstall
over existing install [so I've done everything short of trashing the
current registry]. Have used the sysinternals Autoruns app to look for
anything obvious. Very simple install here -- nothing other than
windows firewall; XP is all up to date with updates; video card is
radeon 9600, and runs fine. I have tried new and old video drivers,
with no success resulting.

Resolution of this problem without having to resort to a fresh
reinstall [thus creating a new registry hive] has become quite an
obsession.

If anyone has any suggestions, advanced or not, please suggest. I've
tried to decipher any useful debug info upon comparisons of activity
within the rundll32.exe app from within both Sysinternal's FileMon and
RegMon, and have not been able to determine anything from the results.
Of course, there's so much to decipher here, but I doubt this is the
most effective way at debugging an obscure problem like this.

 

[WTC]

Have a strange problem:

When in the Display properties control panel, most any choice within
the Desktop tab (ie changing background, hitting the 'Browse' button)
will abruptly exit the Display Properties control panel, of course not
allowing me to easily change the desktop.

Also in the themes tab, most any adjustment to themes will fail most of
the time (80% the control panel just quits, the remainder allows some
changes to go through).

Is there any error events recorded in the Event Viewer when this occurs? The
Event Viewer is located in the Administrative Tools folder which is in the
Control Panel.

 

[scriabinop23]

No, nothing shows up there.

 

[WTC]

No, nothing shows up there.

Do you have the following folder available on your computer?

c:\windows\servicepackfiles\i386

If you do, double-click the file "desk.cpl" and see if you get the same
results. Also there should be a copy of the "desk.cpl" file located in the
"c:\windows\system32dllcache" folder. Try double-clicking this file as well.

 

[scriabinop23]

I'll one up you:
a) i already reinstalled XP over the existing copy, retaining the
registry. desk.cpl was included in the files overwritten.
b) to be thorough, just now i expanded desk.cp_ from my SP2
installation disk, and compared it to what I already had. same byte
counts, same modification dates, etc.
c) I took the file i expanded and replaced my current desk.cpl. Same
problem.

So I am assuming the problem lies somewhere else, likely somewhere in
the registry.

 

[scriabinop23]

and the c:\windows\system32\dllcache\desk.cpl also failed.

 

[WTC]

I'll one up you:
a) i already reinstalled XP over the existing copy, retaining the
registry. desk.cpl was included in the files overwritten.
b) to be thorough, just now i expanded desk.cp_ from my SP2
installation disk, and compared it to what I already had. same byte
counts, same modification dates, etc.
c) I took the file i expanded and replaced my current desk.cpl. Same
problem.

So I am assuming the problem lies somewhere else, likely somewhere in
the registry.

Create a new temporary user account and see if Display Properties crashes.
If it doesn't then I would consider creating a new user profile and copying
your old profile to the new profile by following this article:

How to copy data from a corrupted user profile to a new profile
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=811151

 

[scriabinop23]

Already done it. It fails identically in any new user account.

 

[scriabinop23]

Anyone else have any ideas?