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Thread ID: 20510	2002-06-07 00:21:00	MSPAINT on the fritz and hogging memory?	Guest (0)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
52873	2002-06-07 00:21:00	Hi Team It's the simplest of programs that trip you up! Running Win98 (original) P166 and 192MB RAM. I use MSPaint quite a lot and also have the older 'Paintbox' version installed to use for some jobs. Paint is usually 100% reliable and stable but last night mine threw a wobbly, dropped anchor and refused to work. It started by going slow while resizing a very small monochrome graphic, showed evidence of corruption by erasing when it shouldn't then threw up a 'not enough memory or resources to complete this operation' message. I was working on a Word file lifted off another computer on my home network (helping No.1 son with homework actually) and wanted to recolour the monochrome graphic, a task that Paint usually does quickly and easily. Thinking it was just a temporary aberration perhaps caused by corruption of the data file when I opened it from his computer, I closed everything down and rebooted, but after that it was very slow to even open. Ctrl/Alt/Del showed the expected 'not responding' message but cancelling rather than ending task popped the program up as a shell without all the usual task bars etc, plus the dreaded 'not enough memory or resources message. Hmmmmm, I thought, curiouser and curiouser! Tried deleting MSPaint.exe and restoring from my current Ghost image but that didn't help so I uninstalled and reinstalled the whole application from Control Panel and CD. MSPaint still didn't work but Paintbrush promptly went out on strike in sympathy with the same error messages. I'm buggered if I can see how that happened as Paintbrush is just a single exe file I kept from my WFWG3.11 days. Tried a fresh approach this morning, renamed PBrush.exe to get that out of the equation, removed MSPaint via Control Panel again, cold rebooted and reinstalled. Rebooted again for luck and Oh Joy! Paint opened normally. Unfortunately, my Joy was shortlived! I had set up Supermon to watch my RAM & Resource usage and from 148MB free, it plummeted to 1.9 MB free and as you can imagine, the computer acted like it was full of quick setting cement. Next opening saw RAM usage back to normal but the blank face was back with 'Not enough memory or resources' claimed again. While all this is going on, all other programs are working normally, provided I close Paint down. Although it seemed unlikely, just in case I did a full virus scan and also ran Adaware (latest) to see if I had been visited recently by any nasties but got the all-clear message. Press F1 regulars will probably know that I can dump my latest Ghost backup of my C: drive O/S & Programs back in not much more time than it takes for a long coffee break or short lunch but I'd like to actually fix the problem if I can. There are valuable lessons to be learned (I hope). Does anybody know where can I find a list of all the shared files MSPaint uses so that I can try restoring some of them? I did a search of C: for MSPaint references and found windows/applog/mspaint.lgc that had 13 Dlls listed. I can't imagine that Paint needs all of those so I don't want to get involved in finding or replacing them all as yet. I'd be interested in any ideas about what could be causing this or any advice on how to proceed from here. Cheers Billy <8-{(	Guest (0)
52874	2002-06-07 01:49:00	Hiya Billy, Gee, that sounds mighty suspicious if you ask me. Why not try the online virus scan as well, just to be sure. <housecall.antivirus.com The only files that my Uninstaller records as used by Pbrush.exe are: c:\windows\system\kernel32.dll and c:\windows\system\shell32.dll Uninstaller says no other files use Pbrush.exe - on my PC anyway. That's probably not much help but if you can do something with those files maybe it can be fixed. Good luck!	Guest (0)
52875	2002-06-07 05:59:00	Hi Susan I'm in the process of running Housecall right now but it was an ordeal to get it to run. It doesn't like ZoneAlarm and would not download the virus signatures until ZA was turned off. Once I got it up, the first thing it did (without any scanning action to speak of) was to pop up a 'Trjan (sic) System Cleaner' box telling me my computer was infected with the JS_GIGGER.A trojan. I doubted that very much as GIGGER is quite an old virus and my Nortons is always right up to date. I did a quick check and none of the recognised GIGGER files were present so I wonder if the site was just trying to hard sell their product. That aside, once the scan is finished I'll get back to my Paint problem. Thanks for the file names, it is easy to restore those but the files for MSPaint may differ from those for PaintBrush. The problem is most peculiar and makes me think it is a file common to both programs that is the problem. I recall when reinstalling that I had to choose whether to allow windows to install an older file or keep the one that was there. I'll go back and identify that file and try both versions. Cheers Billy 8-{)	Guest (0)
52876	2002-06-07 11:35:00	Hello Billy, Your problem is almost certainly caused by a corruption of one of MS Paints, required dll files. Your solution is to replace the corrupted dll's. Best achieved by downloading MS Paint from the following link, this is the latest version from MS and natively supports Jpeg files (a bonus) Download and extract the file to a seperate folder,and run it from there, to get over the corruption problem, as you probably have a number of versions of the three dll files on your system, finding the corrupted ones could be a problem this is the easiest way. www.comphlp.com Regards Alan	Guest (0)
52877	2002-06-08 00:44:00	Thanks Alan That sounds like the best solution and I've downloaded the new program, but before I install it, I have a couple of questions. 1) Since uninstalling and reinstalling Paint from the CD did not cure the problem, it is my best guess that the affected DLL's are shared with other programs. Will installing the newer version force replacement DLLs to install or could I find that the corrupted files remain? (Accursed Klingon software architecture!) 2) Is there any way I can find out what files the new program version will install before I actually carry out the installation? Alternatively, is there any shareware, freeware or other resource available that will tell me what files Paint installs in addition to its exe. I have noted the two files (kernel32.dll and shell32.dll) that Susan's uninstaller program recorded but that nay not account for shared files. As an afterthought, I'm going to copy those two off another computer (version & date allowing) and see what happens just for interest while I await your reply. Cheers Billy 8-{)	Guest (0)
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