Baffling probs with IIS, MMC in general, network connections, winamp? (Weird stuff.)

[Phill_W]

Hi there,

My name is Phill and I work as a support representative for a software
company. I am pretty good at 'beating the computer' when it comes to
problem solving, but I know when to admit defeat... I am stumped.

Before we get into it, here's my baseline information:
I use Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 on a Dell Dimension 4550.
I have a 40 gigabyte HD (that is almost filled to capacity; about 911 MB
left) and have been running IIS 5.1 for nearly a year and a half now
without any problems.

A few days ago, I noticed some odd behavior when I tried to run certain
files (specifically music opened with Winamp). When I double click to
open the file, right click and choose "Play in Winamp" or "Enqueue in
Winamp", instead of opening the file, nothing happens, however when I
chose "Open With" from the menu (or run Winamp from the program folder
and open a song) it loaded normally. I figured, "Ok, something is
wrong with winamp, I'll reinstall it later when I have the time," and
carried on with my business.

Before or during the same time that this occurred (I can't really
remember if the Winamp issue started happening before this issue did),
whenever I booted the machine, AVG would come up with an error saying
that it failed to initialize, that an update was not completed, and
that I needed to reinstall AVG. Again, I figured, "Ok, it borked on an
update. I'll reinstall it later," and carried on.

Then on this fateful afternoon when I needed to test some new ASP pages
for the software I support, I tried to start my IIS site up. I opened
IIS's MMC, expanded my local computer as I always do, and..

(See image 1 "iiswtf1" below)

.. Surprise! I attempted to enter a) my local account that has
administrator privileges, b) my main "administrator" account, and c) a
brand-spanking new administrator-privileged account that I created for
the purpose of bashing my head against the desk to see if it'd help.
All three yielded the same message:

(See image 2 "iiswtf2" below)

Finding this extremely weird, I started googling the error and found
http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=959609&page=1, which hinted
that the solution might be to check componant services. I open up
dcomcnfg and expaned Componant Services, then Computers, then... it
died. MMC just *died*. I got an hourglass icon for maybe two seconds,
then just disappeared. My event log shows a COM+ error:

The run-time environment has detected an inconsistency in its internal
state. This indicates a potential instability in the process that could
be caused by the custom components running in the COM+ application, the
components they make use of, or other factors. Error in
d:\qxp_slp\com\com1x\src\comsvcs\package\cpackage.cpp(1184), hr =
80070005: InitEventCollector failed

What's funny about this error is I have no D: drive. D: is my DVD Rom
drive, which currently has a DVD sitting in it.

Moving on, I keep browsing through google until I find this..

http://tinyurl.com/cx3bb

..which seems to be the closest description of my problem so far.
Looking for common symptoms, I tried to check the status of my network
adaptor, and just like this poor fellow, have lost access to *all* of
my defined network connections (the connection 'DSL' which I'm using to
connect to my DSL router, however, is listed in Task Manager and is
running fine). Attempting to look at Windows Firewall gives me this
lovely message:

(See image 3 "morelovefrommicrosoft" below)

Yeah. You don't want to *see* how many rules I have defined. Seeing
that 'matthew' did a system restore and had everything back in
ship-shape, I restored to the 15th of the month to see if anything
would change, and unfortunately matthew's solution didn't work for me.

I am fresh out of ideas. This has stumped not only myself but the
smartest guy I work with. I'm praying that there is some Holy Prophet
of Windows out there that has either seen this before or can think of
something I haven't. Google has yielded people with similar problems,
but so far no solutions of any kind. Reinstalling windows would be an
absolute *nightmare* for me with all of the settings that I have
currently implimented for work, and I am desperately trying to avoid it
at all costs. Please *please* if anyone knows any other alternatives or
has seen anything even remotely like this before, and can give me any
sort of hint on what to do, it would be much appreciated.

Sincerely,

Phill


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[Phill_W]

A few days ago, I noticed some odd behavior when I tried to run certai
files (specifically music opened with Winamp). When I double click t
open the file, right click and choose "Play in Winamp" or "Enqueue i
Winamp", instead of opening the file, nothing happens, however when
chose "Open With" from the menu (or run Winamp from the program folde
and open a song) it loaded normally. I figured, "Ok, something i
wrong with winamp, I'll reinstall it later when I have the time," an
carried on with my business.

Before or during the same time that this occurred (I can't reall
remember if the Winamp issue started happening before this issue did)
whenever I booted the machine, AVG would come up with an error sayin
that it failed to initialize, that an update was not completed, an
that I needed to reinstall AVG. Again, I figured, "Ok, it borked on a
update. I'll reinstall it later," and carried on.

Then on this fateful afternoon when I needed to test some new ASP page
for the software I support, I tried to start my IIS site up. I opene
IIS's MMC, expanded my local computer as I always do, and.. .. Surpris
(access denied)! I attempted to enter a) my local account that ha
administrator privileges, b) my main "administrator" account, and c)
brand-spanking new administrator-privileged account that I created fo
the purpose of bashing my head against the desk to see if it'd help.
All three yielded the same message:

(See image 2 "iiswtf2" below)

Finding this extremely weird, I started googling the error and foun
http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=959609&page=1, which hinte
that the solution might be to check componant services. I open u
dcomcnfg and expaned Componant Services, then Computers, then... i
died. MMC just *died*. I got an hourglass icon for maybe two seconds
then just disappeared. My event log shows a COM+ error:

The run-time environment has detected an inconsistency in its interna
state. This indicates a potential instability in the process that coul
be caused by the custom components running in the COM+ application, th
components they make use of, or other factors. Error i
d:\qxp_slp\com\com1x\src\comsvcs\package\cpackage.cpp(1184), hr
80070005: InitEventCollector failed

What's funny about this error is I have no D: drive. D: is my DVD Ro
drive, which currently has a DVD sitting in it.

Moving on, I keep browsing through google until I find this..

http://tinyurl.com/cx3bb

..which seems to be the closest description of my problem so far.
Looking for common symptoms, I tried to check the status of my networ
adaptor, and just like this poor fellow, have lost access to *all* o
my defined network connections (the connection 'DSL' which I'm using t
connect to my DSL router, however, is listed in Task Manager and i
running fine). Attempting to look at Windows Firewall gives me
lovely message saying that my network settings were corrupted and tha
I'd need to reset to default and delete all my firewall rules.

Yeah. You don't want to *see* how many rules I have defined. Seein
that 'matthew' did a system restore and had everything back i
ship-shape, I restored to the 15th of the month to see if anythin
would change, and unfortunately matthew's solution didn't work for me.

I am fresh out of ideas. This has stumped not only myself but th
smartest guy I work with. I'm praying that there is some Holy Prophe
of Windows out there that has either seen this before or can think o
something I haven't. Google has yielded people with similar problems
but so far no solutions of any kind. Reinstalling windows would be a
absolute *nightmare* for me with all of the settings that I hav
currently implimented for work, and I am desperately trying to avoid i
at all costs. Please *please* if anyone knows any other alternatives o
has seen anything even remotely like this before, and can give me an
sort of hint on what to do, it would be much appreciated.

Sincerely,

Phill

Well, I can see this place was quite helpful...

Needless to say, if there is anyone who actually read this or has
similar problems (or if I'm just sending text into outerspace that
nobody will ever read) I ended up figuring this out.

Apparently, a Windows update patch released on October the 11th
(MS05-051; http://tinyurl.com/83sup) caused some "unexpected" behavior
in people running XP pro, 2000, and Server 2003. The details can be
found 'here' (http://tinyurl.com/72vfu).

Basically, our lovable idiots at Microsoft changed the way COM+
applications have access to the %windir%\registration folder (the
exploit originated that COM+ applications didn't need explicit
permissions to this folder). In essence, if explicit permissions
weren't set on this folder, (which by default they're not), COM+
applications cannot access the COM+ catalog files. The Everyone group
needs read permissions to the files on this folder, and the
administrator group and local system need full control. (If you don't
know how to do this, go to Start -> Run, type explorer and hit OK. Go
to Tools -> Folder Options and click the View tab. Scroll down to the
bottom and make sure "Use Simple Filesharing (Recommended)" is
unchecked - if it's not, uncheck it and click apply then OK. Go to
Start -> Run and type \Windows\ if you use XP/2003 or \Winnt\ if you
use 2000. Right click the Registration folder, choose the security
tab. Under the Everyone group, check Read & Execute, List Folder
Contents, and Read. Under the Administrator group, check Full Control
(the rest of the boxes will check). Under the System account, do the
same. Click Apply and then OK.)

For some reason, I can't see the logic in Microsoft's move here, and
compare it to the following scenario:

Joe A. Veregeconsumer lives in an apartment owned by Mike R. Osopht,
esq. An asian guy named Anno Yings-Uperhacker lives in the same
building, and on the 15th of October, 2005, discovers that his key will
work in any lock on his building. He informs the Mr. Osopht of this
terrible security problem, and Mr. Osopht changes all the locks on the
apartments save for the main building door. He then scampers off to
drink champagne while bathing in his luxrious hottub with 3
supermodels. Anno takes off to find more ways to **** Mike off by
putting him to work. Meanwhile, Joe comes home from his job. He opens
the door to his apartment building, as he does every day he gets home
from work, and thinks nothing is unusual. He walks up to his door,
tries to insert the key in the lock, and .. What's this? His key
doesn't work. He picks up his cell and tries to call Mr. Osopht, and
discovers that the robot answering the phone won't even talk to him
unless he pays a rather large sum of money in the form of a maitenence
fee. He tries knocking on Mr. Yings-Uperhacker's door, and gets no
answer. He tries every apartment in the building, but is left out in
the middle of lobby with no way into his place. He watches as other
people who own larger, more costly appartments attempt to get in and
are locked out as well, and also watches as they call Mike who gives
them new keys to get in. But not Joe, because poor Joe can't afford to
pay the huge maitenence fee.

Finally, after a month and a week of sitting out in the Lobby wondering
why the hell he ever chose this place to live in the first place, on the
28th of November a note is posted on the bullitain board containing a
new key design for the new lock (which is still the same for everyone;
just added alterations in the grooves and a deadbolt to the door).
Instructions for making a new key are also left. Joe takes the
instructions to the locksmith, who makes a new key, and finally goes
home, enters his apartment, and immediately grabs his shotgun and heads
straight for Mr. Osopht's mansion.

Thankfully, I'm a little better at making keys than Joe, however even
the KB article provided to fix this problem was extremely cryptic,
would be difficult to follow or even find for the average XP user.

May the Gods of Technology hold a special place in Tartarus for the
idiot MSCEs who released this patch without bothering to test it.

(P.S. Ironically enough, I system restored back to the 15th... the very
*DAY* that this patch was released. I have no luck, whatsoever.)

¥

 

[Phill_W]

Whoops, update was released on the 11th, not the 15th... Looks like
have more luck than I thought, it's just bad rather than good