Hi all,

thanks once again for all of your time and help on this. I have done everything you have suggested in the last post but still seem to be in the same position i was in when i first started this psot.
Device manager is stil listing no hardware as being installed and i'm still missing some installed componenets such as sound and printers.
I am also unable to download the up to date Java, windows is saying that the windows installer is not intalled properly and the installer available from microsoft dowload won't download because it thinks that theres a newer version already installed on the PC.
Think that i'm looking at a hard disk wipe and reinstalation of XP, unless any of you guys has anything else worth trying??

Hey max, that's fine, we anticipated that. Thanks to good old Pancake, we can at least be sure that after we resolve your issues, it's not likely to return moments later or after you reboot your PC.

Can you follow the procedure below, which should hopefully resolve your Device Manager problem:
- Click Start, click Run, type services.msc, and then click OK.
- Double-click "Plug and Play". (If you receive a Configuration Manager message, click OK)
- In the Startup Type list, click Automatic, and then click OK.
- Restart your PC and test.

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Hey Monkey,

thanks for the palst post - have done what you said and now have sound back (hoooray!!!!!) and devices listed in device manager. Theres still some bits missing though, windows desktop will only display in windows standard mode and not XP, printers still not recognised, and windows hardware installer does'nt seem to be able to find it.
Still, to be honet the lack of sound was one of the main problems and i can live without the other things for the time being at least.

Thanks again guys for all of your help and if there are any further suggestions to resolve the outstanding problems please feel free to share them with me, but please focus on other more needy people than me from now on.

Thanks again.

Nice to hear max. Hey max, what do you mean by standard mode, do you mean themes? Also, have you tried adding a printer via Add/Remove Printers, what happens?

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Hi Monkey,
yeah, tried the add/remove printer option and get the error below;


printer.JPG

you should be able to see on this pic that the toolbar at the bottom is in windows strandard (grey and 'squared')and not in the 'rounded' blue xp style. Its not life or death by any means, just wondered what had happend to it??

Hey max, looks like "Plug and Play" wasn't the only disabled service. You haven't used msconfig at all have you?

OK similar to the procedure we used to fix your device manager problem, can you follow the procedure below:
- Click Start, click Run, type services.msc, and then click OK.
- Double-click "Print Spooler".
- In the Startup Type list, click Automatic, and then click OK.
- Double-click "Themes".
- In the Startup Type list, click Automatic, and then click OK.
- Restart your PC and test.

EDIT: Marked as Resolved.

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Hi Monkey,

sorry for the delay in responding - i hav'nt done anything with msconfig, however, my 7 year old daughter is getting far too computer savy, it is possible that she may have altered some settings somewhere.

done what you suggested but i'm getting the following error when i atempt to start the print spooler;

spooler.JPG

its not starting automatically, getting this error when i attempt to start manually.

Hi Max-- for the best Windows services guide on the web-- go here:

Windows XP Home and Professional Service Pack 2 Service Configurations by Black Viper


The problem is probably that there is a service that the print-spooler depends on to run that is also disabled.
If you look at the print-spooler in services manager-- right-click it --scroll down to proprties/click on that and go to " list dependencies"-- look at "this service depends on" window. If THAT service is disabled there's your problem.

Black Vipers guide will help you figure it out.

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Hi Monkey,

once again you have bailed me out, what you suggested worked a treat. Think everything is working as it should be, for now at least...have to keep an eye on whose doing what on this pc in the future me thinks!!!!!

Thanks again to you and everybody else on the forum for all of your excellent help and suggestions

Hey-- if you are the administrator, why not use Windows Permissions-- or User accounts-- to limit what the others can change ?? The only downside is that your account must be password-protected.

How to configure file sharing in Windows XP

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