Soybean, and Updated- suggested to me, "You could start with Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware." I eventually took the advice - I've used Ad-aware in past, and in last week got copy of Spybot and tried it (I had a couple of problems trying Spybot). Neither resolved the problem, but as you said, 'couldn't hurt'. I run McAfee Virusscan 10, continually updated and so I understoood the indication,
to try filtering out things that seemed wrong, to see what could be targeted. Good plan, and I resisted, then I began the journey.
Thank you both.
As usual for me, after several sessions of Internet querying & repeated reviews of my Registry, I mean several
l-o-n-g sessions... my son generously began looking through things with me -- as usual, he actually found the ANSWER. IT WAS a language localization DLL file I somehow got on my PC, in the System32 folder. It's a perfectly valid file, but [highlight]BEST FOR someone in JAPAN[/highlight]. Labeled from: Microsoft, filename mfc42loc.dll. With this file renamed, mfc42loc.old, we fixed my problem. ---Closed applications, re-opened them then, & immediately- it was
FIXED.
[highlight]File: mfc42loc.dll - MFC Language Specific Resources- Internal name: MFCINTL, version: 6.00.8168.0, Language: Japanese.[/highlight] I must have brought this upon myself, somehow.
Anyway, another relative had the file on a PC I worked upon last year, & I fixed the other PC with the info... However in ME version, I saw Underlines, as there was no Japanese font to plug into the labels on Paint & Wordpad Dialog Boxes, when the Japanese font was called out by the (?C++) programming. My XP version had all kinds of other language fonts, & routinely, Japanese too so it plugged in some rather glyphical characters instead of lines. Both of the PCs are English Language based MS Window Sys's, so English is Default, without a localization file to redirect Dialog Boxes in some programs, that were picking it up. _we all know, I barely can explain this- I'm faking it __ but it sort of explains things in a fuzzy way. *Fixing Millenium Edition, I had to go into Safe Mode, to rename the file, but finally got it done- it Worked!
So that's the What of it. The How / Tools & Reasoning, is what I get really interested in, but I won't bore anyone with all of that-I don't actually know All of That either. But NOW, KNOWING the filename, you can see the problem noted, across the internet, by searching the web, for mfc42loc.dll... isn't that easy?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnvc60/html/redistribvc6.asp (march 2006)- has this info-
"There are several MFC DLLs supplied for various locales. For example, Mfc42deu.dll is the German version and contains version information that identifies it as German locale. If you install any locale DLL, you must ensure the locale for which the DLL is intended matches the locale of the installed Windows system. When you install the DLL, you must rename it to Mfc42loc.dll.
You should never install an Mfc42loc.dll on an English system. English resources are built into Mfc42.dll, and it is faster to load them from that DLL instead of searching (and loading) an MFC localization DLL first."
and more, which suggests some other wrinkles could be on your sys due to file versions which get distributed by various programming. Yes, I know, that would be the basis for many a bald head and bleary-eyed face... I bet I have some other issues just like this - hopefully I will recognize & deal with them appropriately.
Thanks to all who reviewed, considered my post, & especially those who made suggestions. I have tried to repay the kindness with the feedback of this solution, that someone else Gave me. I figured it was a virus or some terrible thing that would eventually wreak havoc on my PC, but hadn't imagined, in a way, it was the old bad .dll file problem. Thanks Computer Hope Forum!
mkelley
3/23/06
05:25
