Interaction, Picture It! and spell check

First, I realize there is a Newsgroup dedicated to Picture It! but while I'm
waiting for a response there perhaps someone here can help me.

In attempting to reply to a friend this morning I received a failure message
having to do with Picture It! and demanding an update before allowing me to
proceed. I had requested a spelling check, as I have for years, before
sending. The computer absolutely hung up in a circular error-and-update
loop and I could only cancel Picture It! (and lose my message and Internet
connection). I am sending this message without checking the spelling first.

Saturday everything was fine. I didn't turn the computer on yesterday
(Sunday). Today it's not working. No changes (that I can remember) between
the days and system restore hasn't been updated for about four days.

The error message wants me to insert a CD which I don't think I have.
Picture It! was included on this computer when I bought it. I have never
used Picture It! and have no intention of doing so.

What's going on?

Ken Bland

--

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." -- Albert
Einstein

Presumably you've run your AV and malware utilities without any reports.
Then if you've done nothing else in the past four days (install/uninstall
new hardware/software or major system changes) then try SR and roll-back to
the last time/date that things were working OK.

If you think that the last SR date was just a little too far back, then you
could always run scanreg /restore and pick Saturday's date - which should be
timed at the first switch-on for that day and ought to be a 'Good' registry.
If not, try Friday's etc.,

BTW - if you can't even get into Safe Mode to run either SR or scanreg
/restore, you can always run the latter in Real Mode DOS (Actually you can
also run SR from DOS - but it's somewhat more complicated g)

Mart


"Justin Thyme" wrote in message
...
First, I realize there is a Newsgroup dedicated to Picture It! but while
I'm
waiting for a response there perhaps someone here can help me.

In attempting to reply to a friend this morning I received a failure
message
having to do with Picture It! and demanding an update before allowing me
to
proceed. I had requested a spelling check, as I have for years, before
sending. The computer absolutely hung up in a circular error-and-update
loop and I could only cancel Picture It! (and lose my message and Internet
connection). I am sending this message without checking the spelling
first.

Saturday everything was fine. I didn't turn the computer on yesterday
(Sunday). Today it's not working. No changes (that I can remember)
between
the days and system restore hasn't been updated for about four days.

The error message wants me to insert a CD which I don't think I have.
Picture It! was included on this computer when I bought it. I have never
used Picture It! and have no intention of doing so.

What's going on?

Ken Bland

--

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." --
Albert
Einstein

If Mart's suggestion doesn't work and you don't use PictureIt!,
Uninstall it.

Rick


Justin Thyme wrote:
First, I realize there is a Newsgroup dedicated to Picture It! but while I'm
waiting for a response there perhaps someone here can help me.

In attempting to reply to a friend this morning I received a failure message
having to do with Picture It! and demanding an update before allowing me to
proceed. I had requested a spelling check, as I have for years, before
sending. The computer absolutely hung up in a circular error-and-update
loop and I could only cancel Picture It! (and lose my message and Internet
connection). I am sending this message without checking the spelling first.

Saturday everything was fine. I didn't turn the computer on yesterday
(Sunday). Today it's not working. No changes (that I can remember) between
the days and system restore hasn't been updated for about four days.

The error message wants me to insert a CD which I don't think I have.
Picture It! was included on this computer when I bought it. I have never
used Picture It! and have no intention of doing so.

What's going on?

Ken Bland

"Rick T" wrote in message
...
If Mart's suggestion doesn't work and you don't use PictureIt!,
Uninstall it.

Rick

My thanks to you, Rick, and to you, Mart. I'd like to touch on your
responses individually, if I may.

To Mart: Yes, I did a virus/adware/CWS check first thing (no effect). I
went back to the latest available restore point, which worked perfectly and
reset several things, but to no effect.

To Rick: I'd gladly uninstally Picture It! but for reasons known only to
Microsoft, it seems, invoking a spellcheck from within Outlook Express goes
through Picture It! (Go figure.) I was quite able to compose a Word
document with deliberate spelling errors, request a spell check there, and
it caught everything.

Now, the semi-good, semi-questionable, news. I received an answer to my
post on the Picture It! site from one John Inzer, a MS Picture It! MVP, and
doggoned if this kind of problem hasn't been addressed by MS earlier and
mentioned in

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=294731

Apparently the problem is not common and the remedy is rather complicated.
Also, the remedy is tailored to a version of Picture It! that is later by
one or two versions than the one shipped with this computer of mine. Maybe,
though, this is a glimmer of light at the end of my tunnel, and if anyone
else reading this has the same difficulty, well, thank John Inzer.

Ken Bland

Justin Thyme wrote:

To Rick: I'd gladly uninstally Picture It! but for reasons known only to
Microsoft, it seems, invoking a spellcheck from within Outlook Express goes
through Picture It! (Go figure.) I was quite able to compose a Word
document with deliberate spelling errors, request a spell check there, and
it caught everything.

That's hilarious; M$ day-to-day stuff makes for more interesting
screwups than any virus-writer could ever conceive of.

Now, the semi-good, semi-questionable, news. I received an answer to my
post on the Picture It! site from one John Inzer, a MS Picture It! MVP, and
doggoned if this kind of problem hasn't been addressed by MS earlier and
mentioned in

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=294731

Apparently the problem is not common and the remedy is rather complicated.

Doesn't look too complicated; those are all difference remedies for
people with different setups.

Good Luck, let us know what happens


Rick

Microsoft: Note: using the phrase "this file has been thoroughly scanned
for viruses" is not necessary for Microsoft produced files and does not
induce any feelings of confidence, whatsoever.



Also, the remedy is tailored to a version of Picture It! that is later by
one or two versions than the one shipped with this computer of mine. Maybe,
though, this is a glimmer of light at the end of my tunnel, and if anyone
else reading this has the same difficulty, well, thank John Inzer.

Ken Bland

Ken wrote:-

To Mart: Yes, I did a virus/adware/CWS check first thing (no effect). I
went back to the latest available restore point, which worked perfectly
and
reset several things, but to no effect.

Well, it's (always) good to know that SR is working - even if it didn't
solve the problem in this instance g Odd though, that the 'spelling'
issue appears to have only just started.

Better still, that you have had some constructive feedback from John
regarding Picture It. Let's just hope thatthe KB article resolves the issue.
And I would concur with Ricks follow-up comments.

Good luck

Mart

Excuse the cross-posting. I won't do it again but two newsgroups are
affected.

First, and if you could see me my face would be red right now; not actually,
but symbolically. The explanation is somewhat lengthy and I'll try to
abbreviate it.

It began about a month ago when I replaced my aging H-P printer with a new
Canon model. After verifying that the Canon was doing its job I began to
eliminate H-P files. Add/Remove took off very little; it had finished its
work before I got my fingers off the keyboard. (I think it eliminated a
driver.) Lots of other files and two folders beginning with HP* remained.
I discovered one H-P uninstall program and it deleted a few more. After a
few more days I got all the HP* files and folders together and dispatched
them to the Recycle Bin. Apparently -- obviously -- at least one of these
files, a DLL, I suspect, was used by more than H-P. Although I couldn't
imagine why removing files taken from Hewlett-Packard folders should affect
spell checking from within IE, it certainly did. Fortunately, I had not
emptied the Recycle Bin and even though it seemed illogical at the time, I
restored everything I had deleted, and presto!, the IE spell checker
function was restored.

Microsoft Picture It! function still objects to a certain DLL but as I don't
make use of Picture It! I'll wait for a little longer to attack that
problem.

Thanks to you all. It's been a learning experience for me, for sure.

Ken Bland