Ron Badour wrote

Date: February 18, 1999 11:57 PM

To: All Newsgroup Regulars,

The purpose of this post is to provide information about a fix for several problems. Max Spyridakis <mspork@msn.com> and I have tested the following fix on our own machines by deliberately removing reigstry entries during testing and we have had others with actual problems test it on their machines. Here's what we found so far:

KB article Q178746 gives a procedure for fixing a registry problem which causes thumbnail photos not to display in Explorer. It lists a command which reinstalls (renews, re-registers or whatever the process should be called) a .dll.

On the Start Menu, Run, type:

regsvr32.exe /i shdocvw.dll and hit OK.

Max and I have done some experimenting and testing and found that this method will fix many problems. I set up seven different configurations with W95, W98 and a beta version of W98. We tested with IE4, IE4 and SP1, and IE5 installed and here is what we found:

If the machine has any version of IE4, use:

regsvr32.exe /i shdocvw.dll

If the machine has IE5 (tested on Beta2), use:

regsvr32.exe /i shdoc401.dll


We have had nearly perfect results with:

- Fixing thumbnails not displaying (this is the MS fix)
- Replacing a missing New command from the context menu (currently, MS recommends a registry repair--see KB article Q180257)
- Replacing a missing File Types tab from Explorer
- Replacing missing entries from Advanced Settings, View tab, Explorer

We have had some success with:

- Replacing a missing Send To entry on the context menu
- Restoring View as Web Page on the context menu of Explorer, View
- Other odds and ends

Currently, many newsgroup regulars offer exports of their registries (.reg files) as a solution to these problems. After comparing exports of registry keys from the seven system configurations noted above, we have found subtle differences that may or may not make a difference in the registry of the machine to which the .reg file is merged. It therefore occurred to Max and myself that there is a possibility of doing harm by trying to fix the problem in that manner. For that reason, we believe the safe way to fix these problems is to reinstall the .dlls as listed above. Should that method not work, registry exports could be used as an alternative fix.
--
Regards

Ron Badour, MS MVP W95/98 Systems
Tips: http://mbr-hobby.neotown.com/rwbadour/index.html/