It seemed to happen after a Windoze Update.
The OS is XP Home Edition, upgraded it recently from SP2 to SP3.
Had also installed Explorer 8 - that was a mistake.
After that, WORDPAD and WORDPAD started randomly crashing. Open Office however runs fine.
Then whenever I print from my computer across our home network to my Wife’s computer, the print dialog takes 3 minutes or so to appear and eventually the print dialog can take 2 to 5 minutes depending on the size of the printed content.
Uninstalled Explorer 8, Uninstalled SP3 and several updates to back before the time of the incident.
Tried Anti-Virus scans with Avast (installed) and also with Housecall Online. Scanned with Spybot S&D, Adaware, nothing found.
Reinstalled SP3 and various updates, no change.
Ran SPF - found nothing.
Installed JV16 Power Tools, cleaned up the registry, no avail.
Also tried the following script:
cls
@echo off
@echo *************************************************************************
@echo * *
@echo * This program will remove the Windows Update Issues *
@echo * found after running WIN XP3 Service Pack. *
@echo * *
@echo *************************************************************************
pause
@echo on
net stop wuauserv
regsvr32 /s wuapi.dll
regsvr32 /s wuaueng1.dll
regsvr32 /s wuaueng.dll
regsvr32 /s wucltui.dll
regsvr32 /s wups2.dll
regsvr32 /s wups.dll
regsvr32 /s wuweb.dll
net start wuauserv
@echo off
cls
@echo on
@echo *****************************************
@echo * *
@echo * Update Complete! *
@echo * *
@echo *****************************************
@echo off
pause
net stop bits
net stop wuauserv
regsvr32.exe /s atl.dll
regsvr32.exe /s jscript.dll
regsvr32.exe /s msxml3.dll
regsvr32.exe /s softpub.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wuapi.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wuaueng.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wuaueng1.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wucltui.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wups.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wups2.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wuweb.dll
net start bits
net start wuauserv
Just delete the wordpad.exe in “C:\Program Files\Windows NT\Accessories” and then rename the wordpad.backup to wordpad.exe
Hope this help!!
PS. would be a good job to copy wordpad.backup, just in case something goes wrong tomorrow or another day
and
Delete the Wordpad shortcut you are using, even if it is in the Start menu. Then we will create a new one that should work.
OK - Ready to create the new one? Good.
Open My Computer or Windows Explorer (make it a size that leaves some desktop showing)
Navigate to:
“C:\Program Files\Windows NT\Accessories”
Find “wordpad.exe”
RIGHT CLICK on that file and HOLD the button down on.
While holding the RIGHT mouse button down, DRAG the file to the desktop - then release it.
In the little menu that shows up, select “Create Shortcuts Here”
Microsoft Wordpad (on Windows XP SP3) contains a vulnerability that can allow an attacker to cause a denial of service.
The vulnerability is due to a memory exhaustion error when a user tries to view a malicious .RTF file.
An attacker can exploit the vulnerability by creating a malicious RTF file that will allocate large amounts of
memory and cause a denial of service condition.
Vulnerable version:
Windows XP SP3
Platform:
Windows XP SP3
Solution:
There is not a patch. Do not open untrusted files.
The printer issue might be tough to resolve if you have two computers with different setups and a wireless printer. Try the Wordpad fixes. Maybe try to find PC specific support groups, searching on SP3 and Wordpad, as that does seem to cause problems.
If it doesn’t work, the no-brainer approach is to go back to a previous version.
Windows updates routinely conflict with something, somewhere, and revisions to the updates eventually get it right. It’s worth your while removing the latest update - returning to a previous version - and waiting until they produce a new update.
In all 29 Years of Programming, I’ve never deleted a Hard Disk and start over. I have done overlay reloads back when you could get away with it.
I took out SP3 and it’s support patches and it still didn’t work.
I did this morning find remmants of a memory worm in the \Windows\system32 folder: edacded0.dat It was just a data file which I prompted. I found by using the DOS prompt: DIR /ah and DIR /as commands.
Both the installed and online Antiviruses however found nothing - unless it’s something new that they don’t have info on yet.
Considering this morning’s find, I’m going to try another Anti-spyware program.
So you now have the old Wordpad.exe and it is still crashing?
Can you try a direct connect printer with a cable to see if that helps with the printer dialog speed? That might help isolate the problem.
Reformat and reinstall everything, is unfortunately one of the most time efficient, and certain ways to get computers up and running. The registry is such a ball of worms that once corrupted, it become difficult to get it back to healthy, and a person can never be sure they got it all.
It looks like the problems might not be related. The printer runs fine when operated locally, only messes up via networking.
So, I may start look at RPC on the other computer that the printer was on and deal with the wordpad problem separately from it.
I’ll probably look at the DLL’s that handle RTF files next, it seems that the crashing is happening with files that use formatting like RTF. So maybe there’s a problem with RICHED20.DLL or associated files.
I don’t have to worry about being on someones clock with my own computer. I’ll search this out till find it.
I had gone back to the time before the problem happened by removing the updates which uses the internal “restore points”, it didn’t make any difference. What I hadn’t considered is that maybe the RPC (Remote Procedure Call - which Microsoft uses for printers that are networked on other computers and other tasks) on the other computer is causing the problems.
When I connect the networked printer (via other computer) the problems return. So for now, I’m just switching the USB cable between machines until I solve the problem.
