MS Paint program is broken

My MS Paint program has stopped working in my Windows Vista computer. It is probably coincidence, but the only change to my computer between the last time mspaint worked and when it stopped working was the installation of an updated sound card driver. Oh, and the installation of a utility to allow unzipping the *.rar file that the driver came packaged in.

When I tried to use mspaint tonight, clicking on the shortcut changed the cursor to an hourglass for about seven seconds, then back to the regular cursor arrow.

I went to C:\Windows\System32 and clicked on the mspaint.exe program directly, and the program opened. I closed the program, right-clicked the mspaint.exe program and created a new shortcut. I clicked it, and the program ran. After that, nothing I could do would make the program run again, either through the shortcut or trying to run it directly. I borrowed a copy of the program from Tony Fabris, it wouldn't run. I downloaded an older version of the program from the internet, and it ran... once and then never again.

No, I got it to run one more time by bringing up the "Run" applet and telling it to run mspaint. The program opened right up once but not again after that.

I ran my Registry Patrol registry cleaner program, it made no difference.

I ran virus scan (AVG Pro, database updated 90 minutes ago), it says the computer is clean.

What is going on here? Why will the same program open up one time from three different prompts (shortcut; direct executable; Run filename) and then never again? How can I get my mspaint.exe program to run again?

tanstaafl.

Presumably you've rebooted between attempts?

Is it actually starting at all? Run Task Manager and, on the Process tab, keep an eye out for MSPAINT.EXE. Run Paint. Does MSPAINT.EXE appear in the list at all? Does it appear in the list and then go away? Does it stay there, but with no window displayed?

This is the one that gets me.

Doesn't Vista do some kind of optimization on EXE files so that they launch faster? Putting them into some kind of permanent cache?

I understand the desire to 'fix what's broke, 'cause it worked before', but would you be amenable to trying other software?
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-paint-program.htm
There are many, many paint and image editor programs available as freeware.

I don't use MSPaint much at all, but when I need it that's my default- it's just there.

Hope you can figure it out!

I agree that there are better pieces of software out there, but I'm reasonably sure that something major is going wrong with Doug's system and this is just one symptom. I think it's important that he gets to the bottom of this.

Uncle google is telling me to try wiping its registry tree, rebooting and trying again:

Delete:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Paint

Also it says MSPaint.exe is targeted by certain pieces of spyware. Perhaps the program is getting re-infected each time you run it, and an on-access virus prevention tool is shutting it down, thus the problem where it ran once and then never ran again. (It ran once uninfected, subsequent times it's getting shut down by the virus scanner.)

MSPAINT.EXE does not appear in task manager.

tanstaafl.

Don't underestimate the old mspaint program. It can be surprisngly capable in sufficiently motivated hands.

But.. you are right, that something major is going wrong, and it is nearly certain that the updated sound driver is at the bottom of it. I normally do not update drivers, operating under the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of thought, but in this case I was getting system crashes (blue screen followed by a restart) and Windows crash recovery information was indicating it had something to do with the audio driver. A check of the driver showed it to be dated about four years before Vista even hit the market, so an update seemed in order.

Tony, remember when you sent me version 6.0.6001.18000 of the mspaint.exe program in the admittedly forlorn hope that my copy of the program might be corrupted? Well... if I go to Control Panel-->Device Manager-->Sound Video & Game Controllers-->C-Media PCI Audio Device-->Driver-->Driver Details I get a window showing four lines:

C:\Windows\System32\cmudax3.DLL
C:\Windows\system32\drivers\cmudax3.sys
C:\Windows\sysstem32\drivers\dmk.sys
C:\Windows\system32\drivers\portcls.sys

Highlighting any one of the four lines gives additional information in the bottom of the dialog box, such as (for the second line):

Provider: C-Media Inc
File Version: 6.12.8.1733 (that's what I downloaded)
Copyright: C-Media Inc. 1998-2007
Digital Signer: Not digitally signed

Okay, I list all this tedious and probably not useful information just as stage setting for the third and fourth lines. If I highlight those lines, I get information at the bottom of the dialog box as follows:

Provider: Microsoft Corporation
File Version: 6.0.6001.18000 (longhorn_rtm.080118-1840)
Copyright: Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved
Digital Signer: Microsoft Windows

Exact same information for both line 3 and line 4. Does that 6.0.6001.18000 sequence ring any bells with you? If not, please go back and look at the third paragraph (not including the quote) of this post.

Things are beginning to cascade, I think. Last night I had audio (greatly improved over the previous sound card driver, BTW) and this morning I have none. If I go into the configure utility for the driver, I can test the audio and each speaker (Left, Right, Subwoofer) responds, but Windows Media Player does not play audio. The program loads and displays and the slider advances but no sound comes out. Same for Nero. Same for You Tube. Same for QuickTime. Same for Line In from the empeg. Same for iTunes. You get the idea. And no, "Mute" is not selected, at least not anyplace I can find. The only thing I have done is let my Tunebite program run overnight, changing DRM'ed WMA files to MP3's. Hmmm... if I load Tunebite back up I get a dialog box saying:

Warning:
Tunebite's High-speed dubbing driver has wrongly been set as default sound device. This setting is erroneous. Other applications will run without sound. Open the control panel and set your actual default device to restore proper sound settings.


I suppose there is a minute, outside possibility that this might be a small, contributing factor to my sound (i.e., lack thereof) problem. Let's check and see... Yes, that helped considerably. Maybe the problems are not cascading after all. I should have thought of the Tunebite thing, since I had to terminate the program in mid-process this morning (8 of the 24 simultaneous threads had locked up).

So, I guess that just leaves me with mspaint.exe not working, and the highly suspicious circumstance of the mspaint.exe drivers being present in the driver description area that belongs to my sound card.

Something wonky [technical term] is going on here. How do I fix it?

tanstaafl.

His painting with Vegemite on toast is more impressive.

That "6.0.6001.18000" version number simply means the file came with that version of Windows. That's just the version of Windows Vista. Type VER at a command prompt.

Oh

tanstaafl.

Heck... just getting within 3 feet of an open jar of Vegemite is impressive.

Have you replenished the paint lately?

Or maybe a little paint thinner?

Nobody ever thinks to clean the brushes!

Deleting the key didn't solve the problem.

AVG reports no virus or malware activity (I did a complete scan).

??

tanstaafl.

Another bit of information...

I downloaded and installed this program (MTPAINT), tried it and then uninstalled it (too complex, for my uses I want something really simple, like MSPAINT.EXE) and on a whim I tried the MSPAINT.EXE program, and it started up and ran -- once.

So, I re-installed MTPAINT and then tried MSPAINT.EXE again. Nothing happened. So I opened MTPAINT and then tried MSPAINT.EXE while MTPAINT was open. Nothing happened. So I closed MTPAINT and tried MSPAINT.EXE, and it started up and ran -- once.

This is repeatable. If I open MTPAINT and then close it, MSPAINT.EXE will open and run one time and then won't run again until I repeat the drill with MTPAINT.

It really doesn't sound like anything is seriously wrong here, perhaps something in the Registry File that gets reset whenever the MTPAINT program exits. Does anybody have a clue about how I might fix this?

tanstaafl.

I know you're a fan of macros and similar kinds of automation. Is there a chance that you had originally automated some kind of a task involving opening and modifying multiple files in MSPaint, and somehow a vestige of that macro is getting run each time it loads?

In a word... no. When I drill down to C:\Windows\System32 and double-click the mspaint.exe file, that's about as direct as I can get, and it doesn't work that way either.

In the event that nobody here has the answer, at what other venues might I appeal for help?

tanstaafl.

OK. Time for the big guns. At a Command Prompt, type the following:



This will change to the directory for MS Paint, set up your symbol path to point at the Microsoft public symbol server, and then run the built-in NT symbolic debugger running mspaint.exe, logging to C:\Temp\mspaint.log.

When you're done, attach the log file.

Will it create the C:\temp folder and the C:\websymbols folder for him if he hasn't created them already?

Don't you need the debugging package for ntsd? It isn't in my install of Vista Business at least...

Gah, yeah, it's not in my Vista Business either. It's on an XP image I've got though.

Is it just a quick download from MS somewhere that Doug could get?

Sigh...

'ntsd' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

From a website about debugging with NTSD: "Unfortunately Vista seems to lack support for this utility."

tanstaafl.

Maybe he could download Windbg and do something similar?

I have downloaded the 32-bit debugging tools set from here but haven't installed it since I have no idea what I am doing and don't even know if it would prove useful. The filename is: dbg_x86_6.11.1.404.msi, and it's from some company called Microsoft. Are they reputable?

tanstaafl.

Well THERE'S your problem!!!

Dammit. I thought that NTSD was standard on all versions of Windows. But, yeah, if Doug downloads the Debugging Tools for Windows and installs it, then he'll end up with a copy of NTSD.EXE in the C:\Program Files\Debugging Tools for Windows (x86) directory.

So:

OK, I saved the above as a batch file in C:\Windows\System32 and ran it from there. Interestingly enough, it opened and ran MSPAINT.EXE at the end when MSPAINT would not run by double-clicking its filename.

The resulting log file is attached. I hope there is some sort of "aha moment" contained therein.

It seems odd to me that the "mkdir C:\WebSymbols" line appears after the preceding line that actually references the directory, which ended up with no files in it in any case. No doubt there is a good reason for it...

tanstaafl.

And if you run it a second time? I seem to recall that your problem only seems to appear the second time.



Not yet. It all looks fairly normal.



The first line only sets an environment variable. The directory is not actually used until NTSD needs to get hold of some symbols.

It's empty because nothing went bang and it didn't need to download any symbols.

Correct. If I get mspaint to open by running the batch file or by opening and closing mtpaint, it will only open once, after that it will not open again. Also, rebooting does not change things.

tanstaafl.

EDIT:

OK -- additional data: Running the batch file a second time does NOT open mspaint, and in fact the batch file stalls in the middle and the log file is only partially written. I am attaching the log file again, as the second log is appended to the first and you can see the point where the process quit while trying to start mspaint. Hopefully this will prove to be an "aha moment".

db

SECOND EDIT:

Now mspaint will not open no matter what I do. The mtpaint trick no longer works, nor does the batch file.

db

Still no "aha moment" in there, unfortunately. I'm perplexed. If the process is terminating accidentally, I'd expect to see something in there. At this point, I'd be looking at remote-debugging the problem, but I'm not sure how we're going to work that.

If I was wearing a hat Doug I'd take it off to you for the amount of time you're spending on this. Had I been in your position I would've nuked it and started again.

I would never have noticed that MSPaint wasn't working to begin with. There is really no reason not to use Paint.NET or any of the handful of other free image editors that at least have support for PNG, if nothing else.

There is still one reason to use Paint, it is still the quickest way to get the output of alt-print screen into a file. Unless you already have paint.net open...

Is there some shortcut I'm unaware of? Because I can't see much difference between [starting paint, resizing the default canvas to something smaller than your screenshot if necessary, hitting ctrl-v, ctrl-s] and [starting paint.net, hitting ctrl-alt-v, ctrl-s]. Personally, I think that not having to consider the size of the image to be pasted saves more time than waiting a little longer for the program to open.

On the other hand, I see that Paint actually does support PNG now, so it's worked its way back up to cutting-edge 1996 technology.

I think Purrint is faster. I've used it to auto save every printscreen / alt-printscreen to sequentially numbered PNG files.

Paint starts faster than Paint.NET.

You don't need to resize the default canvas in even vaguely recent versions of Paint (from at least XP on), it resizes when you paste. As Roger points out Paint starts a lot faster than Paint.net, especially the first time.

But more importantly I can sit down at any users PC, in any organisation and start Paint it two seconds by hitting windows-r and typing "mspaint". In those sort of cases installing Paint.net isn't really an option.

It is a shame though that MSFT never took the Apple approach to screenshots and just saved the screenshot to a file.

One big reason: Simplicity. MSPaint's limited feature set makes it very simple to run. What I do with graphics is pretty much limited to things like doing a screenshot of a Google Map and printing it out, or importing a .jpg and drawing an arrow on it, or cropping and resizing a .jpg to post on this bbs. I just don't need a color palette adjustable for tint, saturation, and ... whatever that third thing is. I don't need layers., I don't need 20 different drawing tools with 15 different line widths. For my usage, more capabilities does not mean "more better".

Another reason: I really would like to know what has gone wrong with my computer, and whether it is the harbinger of additional trouble.

Finally, I have used MSPaint for 15 years or so, I have fully mastered its rather simple interface, and don't feel like going through the learning curve of a new program.

tanstaafl.

I downloaded and tried Paint.net and I must admit it looks promising. It has features I will probably not need or use, but at least it uses the philosophy so well demonstrated in the 2003 version of Excel of keeping the top layer of the GUI simple and basic and hiding the complex things underneath. In the few minutes I have played with it I have found some features that were lacking in MS Paint that I like, such as being able to rotate the image in increments other than 90 degrees, and considerably more default options for sizing and the fact that (AFAICT) all the tools work when the image size is expanded or contracted.

If there are any shortcomings in the program, it is probably only that something doesn't work the way I expect and due to the more complex GUI I just haven't figured out what to do yet.

Thanks, Bitt, for pointing this program out to me.

But... can anyone offer an answer of why my MS Paint program won't work? If I have Paint.net open, all I have to do is click on the Save icon and MS Paint will work. One time. Click Save in Paint.net and MS Paint will work again. Once. Very strange behavior.

tanstaafl.

It's most likely been pointed out the registry may be at fault. Like that's a lot of help.

At the risk of going a bit off topic is there a 3rd party reg editor that "just works better".

For instance I tried searching with Regedit for "mspaint.exe". After many hits of F3, fatigue set in.

I'm thinking it would be nice to have an editor that could provide a filtered view, instead of skipping from place to place.

Registry Commander

Also, these are better search utilities, but fall back on RegEdit for actual editing:
RegSeeker
RegScanner