Win2K/XP Revelations
-
For months I've been fighting two problems, on two different systems. I finally made some headway that I should pass on to those who tried to help resolve them. One is a problem with unreliable printing on a WinXP network. Shared printers would work for a while, albeit badly, then stop responding. I finally solved it this week. In the Add Printer wizard you are offerred a couple of ways to assign a printer. Using the \\hostname\printername method is the first choice in the list, via a tree directory, so that's the method I've been using. Bad choice - it doesn't work. Lower down the list are the hosts on the network, each with a sub-entry for its shared printer. Selecting those shares solved the problem completely, though I have no idea why. The second is my home Win2K server. Since the last Windows Update it has been freezing up - no errors, no events, no Dr. Watson - every two days or so. Yesterday I talked with my ISP, and he's been plagued by the same problem, both on his servers, and on his customers' PCs. The one thing they all have in common, without exception, is that they all have SP1 on IE6. For all of them, the problem started when SP1 was applied. He's tried to roll back the SP, but that corrupts IE6, and the Add/Remove Programs 'Repair' option disappears, so he has to reinstall the entire program from scratch to recover. It doesn't appear to make any difference which version of the OS is running, either - WinXP has a much improved error handling system and usually doesn't need to be rebooted, but it does stop and restart explorer.exe when IE freezes the system. It's not yet a solution, but it seems to be an explanation, at least. I'm going to ask him to survey his customers to see if we can determine whether there are any who have IE6SP1 who have not experienced the problem. Maybe we can figure out a resolution that way, since MS hasn't ackowledged it or provided a fix yet. Or maybe we'll find out something completely different - who knows at this stage?:-) It could be something in his network interacting with IE... If anyone's interested, I'll post the fix, if any, when we find it. Thanks to all who have tried to help with these problems previously! Nobody wants to read a diary by someone who has not seen the shadow of Bubba on the prison shower wall in front of them!
Paul Watson, on BLOGS and privacy - 1/16/2003 -
For months I've been fighting two problems, on two different systems. I finally made some headway that I should pass on to those who tried to help resolve them. One is a problem with unreliable printing on a WinXP network. Shared printers would work for a while, albeit badly, then stop responding. I finally solved it this week. In the Add Printer wizard you are offerred a couple of ways to assign a printer. Using the \\hostname\printername method is the first choice in the list, via a tree directory, so that's the method I've been using. Bad choice - it doesn't work. Lower down the list are the hosts on the network, each with a sub-entry for its shared printer. Selecting those shares solved the problem completely, though I have no idea why. The second is my home Win2K server. Since the last Windows Update it has been freezing up - no errors, no events, no Dr. Watson - every two days or so. Yesterday I talked with my ISP, and he's been plagued by the same problem, both on his servers, and on his customers' PCs. The one thing they all have in common, without exception, is that they all have SP1 on IE6. For all of them, the problem started when SP1 was applied. He's tried to roll back the SP, but that corrupts IE6, and the Add/Remove Programs 'Repair' option disappears, so he has to reinstall the entire program from scratch to recover. It doesn't appear to make any difference which version of the OS is running, either - WinXP has a much improved error handling system and usually doesn't need to be rebooted, but it does stop and restart explorer.exe when IE freezes the system. It's not yet a solution, but it seems to be an explanation, at least. I'm going to ask him to survey his customers to see if we can determine whether there are any who have IE6SP1 who have not experienced the problem. Maybe we can figure out a resolution that way, since MS hasn't ackowledged it or provided a fix yet. Or maybe we'll find out something completely different - who knows at this stage?:-) It could be something in his network interacting with IE... If anyone's interested, I'll post the fix, if any, when we find it. Thanks to all who have tried to help with these problems previously! Nobody wants to read a diary by someone who has not seen the shadow of Bubba on the prison shower wall in front of them!
Paul Watson, on BLOGS and privacy - 1/16/2003I *think* I've installed IE6SP1, but I use Mozilla as my default web browser, and haven't noticed the problem you mention, so It could be a case that IE has to be used lots until it eventually bogs down and dies. Have you tried just leaving your computer on, but not using it at all, to see if it crashes when unattended and unused? -- Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit!
-
I *think* I've installed IE6SP1, but I use Mozilla as my default web browser, and haven't noticed the problem you mention, so It could be a case that IE has to be used lots until it eventually bogs down and dies. Have you tried just leaving your computer on, but not using it at all, to see if it crashes when unattended and unused? -- Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit!
benjymous wrote: Have you tried just leaving your computer on, but not using it at all, to see if it crashes when unattended and unused? Yup. It does. :( Nobody wants to read a diary by someone who has not seen the shadow of Bubba on the prison shower wall in front of them!
Paul Watson, on BLOGS and privacy - 1/16/2003