Unable to print to any device in ME (including file)

[maurella]

I am now unable to print on my daughter's ME laden PC. My latest foray has been to try to print a test page when the port has been set to be a file. When I click the Print Test Page button, I immediately get a popup that reads:

Windows was unable to print the test page. Would you like to begin troubleshooting now?

I have a screen dump at:

http://www.premier1.net/~miker/print.bmp

Needless to say, the troubleshooter is worthless. I have uninstalled the printers and drivers and reinstalled them and setup the most basic of printers (deskjet 500 to FILE) with this same result every time.


Being that the port is FILE, the problem cannot be with a printer, cable, network share or tcp/ip misconfiguration (right?), so it seems to me that it must have something to do with M$ ME itself. Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[smah]

Give this proceedure a whirl. It is an excerpt from

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;128345

Remove Temporary Files and Spool Files
Restart your computer to a command prompt. In Windows 95, press F8 when you see the "Starting Windows 95" message, and then choose Safe Mode Command Prompt Only from the Startup menu.

For Windows 98, restart your computer, press and hold down CTRL after your computer completes the Power On Self Test (POST), and then choose Safe Mode Command Prompt Only from the Startup menu.

NOTE: Windows-based programs cannot print when you start Windows 98 or Windows 95 in Safe mode.
At the command prompt, type set, and then press ENTER. Note the location of the TEMP variable.
Change to the folder you noted in step 2. For example, if TEMP is set to C:\Windows\Temp, type cd\windows\temp, and then press ENTER.
Delete any temporary files in this folder. Temporary files typically have a .tmp file extension. To delete these files, type del *.tmp, and then press ENTER.

NOTE: You should not delete these files from within the Windows 98 or Windows 95 graphical user interface (GUI) because Windows 98, Windows 95, or a Windows-based program may be using one of these files.
Type cd\windows\spool\printers, and then press ENTER to change to the spool folder.
Delete any spool files in this folder. Spool files typically have a .spl file extension. To delete these files, type del *.spl and then press ENTER.

 

[maurella]

Thanks smah. That wasn't it, but it got me pointed in the right direction. I found that the \windows\win.ini was a mess; looks like something happened where instead of being overwritten, all changes were instead appended, so there were tons of duplicate entries for the printers, devices, etc. with some binary goop at the beginning; I guess that is corrupted. I just replaced the file with an empty one and it now works.