Hi Woody,
Thanks for replying.
I haven't used a registry cleaner for months (I don't trust them), and
even then, it was only ccleaner.
As I said, I don't have any restore points, because the HP installation
used them all.

Regards,
Paul

Woody;1087252 Wrote:
What registry cleaner did you use and did it have any restore options?
That
is what usually starts these problems. Try a restore point from before
the
problem started.

"Fish-Man" wrote in message
...

Hi,
I have 2 problems, (which are probably permission issues, and I
believe
to be related) that I can't resolve, and I am hoping that someone can
help me.
1. If I right click the desktop and choose Personalise, I get an
error
box with:

[Window Title]

::{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}\::{ED834ED6-4B5A-4BFE-8F11-A626DCB6A921}
[Content]
Windows cannot find

'::{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}\::{ED834ED6-4B5A-4BFE-8F11-A626DCB6A921}'.
Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again.
[OK]

but the 'Control Panel Personalisation' page opens as normal.
I also get the same problem with any other control Panel right
clicks.
The error pop-up can also happen at other times:
2. I cannot install new hardware. I have just tried to connect a
HP
officejet printer using the latest downloaded drivers, but the
driver
installation fails, giving an error window with:
Then:

Found New Hardware - HP Printer
Windows encountered a problem installing the driver software for
your
device.
Windows found driver software for your device but encountered an
error
while attempting to install it.
The system cannot find the file specified.

The error number returned was 1603, so I went to HP's site and
followed
'this workaround'
('HP Printers and All-in-Ones*-* Fatal Error 'Error 1603. A fatal
error occurred during installation.' (MSI Error 1603) Displays
During Software Installation in Windows 2000 and XP*'
(http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...dlc=en&cc=uk)),
but that didn't work.
As a test, I uninstalled my fully working Epson scanner, and
tried
installing it again, but it failed with the same error as the HP
printer.
I do not have any restore points because every time I tried
another
idea to install the printer, the installation program created a
new
restore point, so now I only have loads of useless HP created
resore
points left.
I have checked the whole computer with Avast!, Kaspersky,
Ad-Aware,
SuperAntiSpyware, Spybot S&D - all come back clean.
Tried sfc /scannow - OK
Tried logging on with THE administrator account, and with
MSConfig
disabling as much as possible - same failure.
Using Vista Ultimate x64 SP2

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.
Regards,


--
Fish-Man


--
Fish-Man