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Hi folks, I'm having a rather strange problem here!

Whenever I double-click some specific document types in Explorer, the associated application opens, but I receive a message saying:

"Windows cannot find [FILENAME]. Make sure you typed the name correctly..."

Where [FILENAME] is the document I'm double-clicking. Although the application is started, it does not open the document I double-clicked! But if the application is already open and I double-click the file again, it will show the document in the opened window normally with no error!

It happens when I double-click most Office documents (.DOC, .XLS) and also to Palm .PRC, .PDB files, so by looking fo these file types in REGEDIT I was able to track the problem down to any app that uses DDE commands to open its documents from Explorer, but now I don't know why this happens and how can I get rid of this problem. Please help me!

Thanks in advance.

Hi Zorax,

Welcome to PCHF. I appologize for the delay in responding to your post. We have a wonderful team of techs here, and I am sure we will be able to help you track down the reason for your troubles.

I would first want to rule out a malware infection. So if you would please carefully follow the instructions for PreWork in my signature, and post back both the ewido, and the HijackThis logs, I would be very appreciative.

Looking forward to your reply,

TTFN

LGW

Thanks for your help, ladygreenwitch!

I was pretty sure there wer no malwares in my system, I'm very careful with that. Anyway, I ran the tests you told me from the PreWork and here are my results.

ewido scan returned no infected file at all after deleting cookies with ATF-Cleaner.

HijackThis log is attached.

One fact I noticed is very curious: while I was in Safe Mode to run ewido, I double-clicked a DOC file and to my surprise Word opened the document with no error at all! After I restarted into Normal mode I tryed the same and just got the error again, telling me the file was not found. This is odd!

OK Zorax,

Let me take a look and see what comes up.

TTFN

LGW

Your right Zorax, you do keep a clean and tidy PC.

I only had a couple of questions, and one comment from your HJT log. Do you recognize these IP addresses? If not you should fix these items with HJT. If you do, leave them alone.

It appears that you have Windows Messenger enabled, if so it would be prudent to disable it as it can leave you open to Popup attacks, simply download Shoot the Messenger from my signature, and run the program, it takes care of all of the settings for you.

I would also, recommend downloading Spy Sweeper from my signature, and running a full system scan just to make sure. If it finds anything, post back the log here.

Next on my list of trouble shooting, would be to run the repair console for Microsoft Office, and then run the SFC utility to make sure you aren't suffering from any damaged system files.

To run these utilities, you will need to have both your Office, and XP cds available.
For the Office repair utility, insert your Office CD, and choose Repair at the startup screen. You will want to make sure that all of your office programs are closed. After running the repair, restart the PC. If you are still having the same difficulty, run the SFC utility.

Make sure that your XP CD is in the drive, go to Start, Run, and type in
SFC /scannow
then hit Enter. This will search for and replace any damaged or missing system files.

Let us know if either of these make any difference. I will be looking forward to your reply,

TTFN

LGW

ladygreenwitch:

About R1, it is the local address that should be overriden when using a proxy, it is set under Connection tab in the Internet Settings and it is disabled because I'm not using a proxy right now.

In O17 is the address of my router, witch is my current gateway. I've set up the network addresses manually, so it is normal too.

Windows Messenger is listed to load, but it does not because I've renamed the executables and DLLs from its folder, I suppose this has the same effect as uninstalling it.

I have tryed to repair and even reinstalling Office but it didn't help and I guess that's because, as I told you, the problem is not with Office itself as any app that uses DDE to open its associated file fails. Even if repairing Office worked I would still not be able to open eg., Palm PRC and PDB files for QuickInstalling them.

As a last resource I've tryed SFC as you told and again something odd happened: it fails to load with the message: "You must be an Administrator running a console session in order to use the Windows File Checker utility".

I checked this message in Microsoft KB and it says it happens when one is trying to run SFC from a remote management console and what's odd is that I'm not accessing my computer remotely, I'm logged locally to Windows as an user with administrative rights! Then I logged as another administrator in my system and I was able to run SFC. It scanned all files as it should and at the end it just exited, no messages given at all, but the original problems have not gone!

I really don't know what else to do. Please help me! I also cannot start Help & Support, it simply does not start and I cannot run the Disk Management console, it says it cannot connect to the remote computer because it is not in the exception list in the firewall, but IT IS and I'm not trying to connect to a remote machine, I'm using it locally!!!

Hey Zorax,

Don't despair. Have you by any chance tried to run any of these programs from within another account? Perhaps the problem is not actually with the files association, but with a glitch in your account.

Also, have you tried an XP repair install? If the problem is a system error, that could also resolve the problem.

Looking forward to your reply,

TTFN

LGW