[RESOLVED] Trubleshooting MSCOMCTL.OCX problems

[krtxmrtz]

In this post

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...not-registered

I described the recent problem I had with mscomctl.ocx.

As a matter of fact I made a search of the vbforums site and found a quite similar thread of my own I'd forgotten about describing the same situation:

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...=1#post4658835

So I followed some of the steps suggested in it and finally solved the problem.

As I'm somewhat sloppy I didn't make any notes at that time but now I've written some instructions in case I run again into the the problem in the future.

Here's a summary of the recipe that's worked for me.

1. Roll back to an earlier version of Internet Explorer.

In my case, I went from IE11 to IE8.

Step 1
Open up the Control Panel and go into the "Programs" section.

Step 2
Go to the Add/Remove Programs section and click the "View Installed Updates" link in the left pane.

Step 3
Find the updated version of Internet Explorer in the list of updates, right-click it and select "Uninstall."

Step 4
Restart your computer once the installation is complete to revert to the earlier version of IE.

2. Follow the instructions given in

https://www.fmsinc.com/MicrosoftAcce...rols/mscomctl/

starting at the paragraph "Our Steps for Fixing the Registration of the Windows Common Control"

3. Prevent IE from updating in the future by means of a Microsoft Toolkit. For example, for IE8 it can be found here:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/dd365124.aspx

EDIT:
After all the steps are complete, the first time the VB IDE is started an error may show up possibly related to some other control e.g. the MS Richtextbox. Just close the IDE and start it again and most likely the error will be gone.

[krtxmrtz]

This is a transcription of the instructions for step 2 above:

32 Bit Windows

1. Unregister the new OCX file. Open an instance of the Windows Command Prompt, paste the following command, and press <Enter>:
Regsvr32.exe /u C:\Windows\System32\MSCOMCTL.OCX

2. Make a backup of the OCX file C:\Windows\System32\MSCOMCTL.OCX to C:\Windows\System32\MSCOMCTL.bak

3. Copy a legacy version of the MSCOMCTL.OCX file to your C:\Windows\System32 folder. For your convenience, a zipped copy from 2011 is here.

https://www.fmsinc.com/MicrosoftAcce...l/MSCOMCTL.zip

4. Register this legacy OCX file with the following command:
Regsvr32.exe C:\Windows\System32\MSCOMCTL.OCX

5. Unregister this legacy version of the OCX file:
Regsvr32.exe /u C:\Windows\System32\MSCOMCTL.OCX

6. Delete the legacy OCX file: C:\Windows\System32\MSCOMCTL.OCX

7. Rename the new OCX file we renamed in step 2, back to its original name:
C:\Windows\System32\MSCOMCTL.bak to C:\Windows\System32\MSCOMCTL.OCX

8. Re-register the new version of the OCX file. Paste the following command and press <Enter>:
Regsvr32.exe C:\Windows\System32\MSCOMCTL.OCX

9. Reboot the computer.

10. Open Microsoft Access (or VB6) and then retest the control. It should be working at this point.

64 bit Windows

The 64-bit steps are identical to the 32 bit version except the folder is SYSWOW64 rather than SYSTEM32:

1. Unregister the new OCX file. Open an instance of the Windows Command Prompt, paste the following command, and press <Enter>:
Regsvr32.exe /u C:\Windows\SYSWOW64\MSCOMCTL.OCX

2. Make a backup of the OCX file C:\Windows\SYSWOW64\MSCOMCTL.OCX to C:\Windows\SYSWOW64\MSCOMCTL.bak

3. Copy a legacy version of the MSCOMCTL.OCX file to your C:\Windows\SYSWOW64 folder. For your convenience, a zipped copy from 2011 is here:

https://www.fmsinc.com/MicrosoftAcce...l/MSCOMCTL.zip

4. Register this legacy OCX file with the following command:
Regsvr32.exe C:\Windows\SYSWOW64\MSCOMCTL.OCX

5. Unregister this legacy version of the OCX file:
Regsvr32.exe /u C:\Windows\SYSWOW64\MSCOMCTL.OCX

6. Delete the legacy OCX file: C:\Windows\SYSWOW64\MSCOMCTL.OCX

7. Rename the new OCX file we renamed in step 2, back to its original name:
C:\Windows\SYSWOW64\MSCOMCTL.bak to C:\Windows\SYSWOW64\MSCOMCTL.OCX

8. Re-register the new version of the OCX file. Paste the following command and press <Enter>:
Regsvr32.exe C:\Windows\SYSWOW64\MSCOMCTL.OCX

9. Reboot the computer.

10. Open Microsoft Access (or VB6) and then retest the control. It should be working at this point.