SubMenus fail in IE 5.5 on NT4 SP6a

Poster: scrubber
Dated: Wednesday November 6 2002 - 21:43:04 GMT

Cheers All...

I've tested pretty significantly on a whole host of machines, but three computers recently have shown up where the sub menus don't appear. When I mouse over the top level the highlight color shows up, but the submenus do not appear.

The error we receive is as follows:

Line: 51
Char: 170
Error: file name or class name not found during Automation operation
Code: 0
URL: http://www.hollywoodvideo.com

Oddly enough, this doesn't happen on every machine, just a few. The "Automation" error leads me to believe there are corrupt files just on these machines.

More specific info is IE 5.50.4807, SP2.

We are able to fix it for these folks by upgrading them to 6, but if at all possible I would appreciate any assistance.

Thank you!
-Scott

Poster: Andy
Dated: Wednesday November 6 2002 - 22:39:59 GMT

Scott,

This is happening more often and it's taking us quite a while to track it down as we just can't seem to replicate the faulty install. Every browser/OS install we try works perfectly

It is a problem with libraries and I can confirm that it's connected with the dll's c:\windows\system32\dxtmsft.dll and c:\windows\system32\dxtrans.dll. Both are part of DirectX and we think it's down to a faulty release of DirectX 8a. Can you confirm what version of DirectX has been installed on the faulty machines? c:\windows\system32\dxdiag.exe is the application you need to check this.

The menu does a check to see if the libraries are registered and if they are it will use DirectX special effect filters and transitions. If not it will ignore any request for them. The faulty installs are informing the menu that the libraries are registered but when accessed are issuing the browser with a library not registered error. This is a Microsoft problem and one which has not been published very well for obvious reasons.

There is however, an article at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q298101& which I think is connected.

There is also another way of seeing if the libraries are at fault. normally you can un-register and then re-register libraries at will using regsvr32.exe. if you have a faulty install you will get an error when you try and un-register one of the above libraries.

from a command prompt type regsvr32 -u c:\windows\system32\dxtmsft.dll and see if it will un-register itself. You should get an error on the faulty install. If it does un-register you can register it again with the command regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\dxtmsft.dll

If anyone else has this problem or knows more about it, I'd be very happy to hear about it.

Regards
Andy

Thank you... what about turning the transparency off?

Poster: scrubber
Dated: Thursday November 7 2002 - 0:34:06 GMT

Andy... thanks a bunch for the fast and comprehensive response. We're going to follow your suggestions tomorrow and I'll send you any results we find.

One question, though, and I hate to ask it, but would turning off the transparency solve this? Is that possible? I love the look of it and it's never failed for me on any machine as I dutifully update my software... unfortunately some of our surfers probably don't.

Thanks again...
-Scott