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Grex Micros Item 158: Need help - MS Win says all printer drivers are invalid
Entered by davel on Sat Jan 11 00:06:05 UTC 1997:

We recently bought a used 486 computer (big step up, & it feels wonderful).
It runs Windows For Work Groups 3.11, but I think the problem I'm about to
describe probably is something that could show up on Win 3.x in general -
though I could be wrong.  (If I knew what's wrong, I wouldn't be asking.)

The problem is in installing printers.  No matter what printer type I specify
to add, I get this message popping up:

"Control Panel cannot perform the current operation because XXXXXXXXX.DRV is
not a valid printer-driver file.      Make sure that you have a valid
printer-driver file, reinstall the printer, & then try again."

(XXXXXXXX.DRV being some appropriate-sounding driver name, in each case.)

I've reinstalled (EXPANDing) drivers.  That didn't make any change,
leading me to suspect that this isn't a bad driver (or *all* of them), but
a result of something done when the previous owner uninstalled something.
I've tried to check for dependencies and re-installed a bunch of things
(UNIDRV.DLL, for example) that seemed to be missing.  But nothing helps,
& I'm stuck.  Can anyone tell me what's wrong, or where to find out
what's wrong?

Thanks.  I know, I always ask weird questions ... <sigh>

10 responses total.

#1 of 10 by ajax on Sat Jan 11 04:51:18 1997:

Dave, no tips on the specific printer problem, but here's one of the more
annoying responses people often get from MS's tech support: "have you
tried reinstalling the operating system?"  It's serious overkill to fix
what's probably a single messed-up file, but it does often fix weird
problems like that.  If you have the original disks for Windows and
whatever applications you want to use, I'd bet that wiping them off the
hard drive and starting fresh will solve your problem.

#2 of 10 by davel on Sat Jan 11 13:36:58 1997:

<sigh> Win, yes, but not the applications.  I thought about this, with
variations, but so far have chickened out.  I *have* tried Microsoft's web
site, BTW, but didn't find anything useful.

#3 of 10 by scott on Sat Jan 11 14:35:25 1997:

You can usually do a reinstall of Windows 3.1 without losing the applications.
If I remember right, the install program will go looking for programs to turn
into icons.  Also, Win3.1x doesn't have a win32 registery, so most apps will
be totally undisturbed.

You can try to reinstall without deleting the old?

#4 of 10 by ajax on Sat Jan 11 19:07:15 1997:

  I'd probably try that, reinstalling w/o deleting the old, but it's
less likely to fix the problem.  Even without the registry issue, Win
programs have an ugly habit of scattering critical DLLs and other files
into the /WINDOWS or /WINDOWS/SYSTEM subdirectories, so you shouldn't
wipe those out before reinstalling.  You could back them up to another
subdir, then wipe them, and after reinstalling Win, move back DLLs and
such as you find you need them.  That's tedious, though.

#5 of 10 by davel on Mon Jan 13 11:08:37 1997:

Well, that's about what I tried.  Now the printer works but one of the main
apps (for which I lack the original disks)  doesn't.  <sigh>  For the moment
I have plenty of disk, so I zipped up a backup, & can always go back to the
status quo ante.

(The present problem is, immediately, that Win doesn't find DLLs for this app
in trying to run it.  It found them fine, in a particular directory associated
with the app, before.  I tried (temporarily) copying them to \WINDOWS\SYSTEM,
and then it could find them, but it complained about an OLE.  With that I'm
way out of my depth.)

#6 of 10 by scott on Mon Jan 13 11:59:24 1997:

Did the reinstall muck with your path?  Occasionally you just need to get the
path specified for the extra app just to make *it* happy.

#7 of 10 by kenb on Mon Jan 13 15:40:29 1997:

You could edit the [app].INI file and search for *.DLL to see where the app 
expects to find them.  Then just edit the locations to show where they are
currently located.

#8 of 10 by scott on Mon Jan 13 16:52:44 1997:

Another possibility is that that app had a DLL that was more recent than those
reinstalled by Windows.  If you have your backup, you might check file dates
on DLLs.  I can't really help with how to find out which DLLs to look for,
though.

#9 of 10 by davel on Tue Jan 14 12:07:11 1997:

Well, I borrowed the original disks for the app in question from someone else
who has it, & re-installed it.  <grumbles at the aardvarks who were
responsible for *that* installation procedure>

Thanks for help, folks. <sigh>

#10 of 10 by wolfg676 on Sat Apr 11 09:07:30 1998:

Win 3.x *does* have a registry, just one nowhere near as organized as the
Win95 one, and with a crappy editor. That is where most of the OLE errors will
originate from. Eithere there, or in the system.ini under the "[embedding]"
header.

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