HP Features and New Downloaded Photos Won't Open

[Darrix]

I screwed up. Did disk cleanup and defrag as I regularly do and must have dumped something I normally don't do.



Symptoms:



Any feature of HP will no longer open, though the HP "picture" launches.



Behinf the picture a window opens which I can't see or drag.



Another window, for example, Document Viewer will open. I can drag it to view it.



Regardless of the viewer window, it will say the same thing (not the exact words); the feature you are trying to use is on a cd rom or other removeable disk ...



The same deal happens with photos I downloaded from a forum. ( I downloaded them to my newer computer and they open fine).



On my XP PC, if I choose an application like IrfanView it'll say "Can't read file header! Unknown file format or file not found!



If I try to open a photo via HP Image Zone I get "the feature you are trying to use is on a cd rom or other removeable disk ..."



None of my photos will open now.



Even though I have several System Restore dates to choose from, after it runs through restore, restarts the PC, I get a window which includes "system restore incomplete".



Prior to my monthly "cleanup", all was well.



If this is of any help. The pics I download which won't open have the IrfanView logo instead of a thumbnail. Most of those pics are posted by folks via photobucket. I went to photobucket and download 3-4. One of them actually downloaded normally and the others downloaded and wouldn't open as has been described.



Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[Darrix]

Forgot a biggie. What started this all was I turned my PC on. As my desktop came up I had a window which was trying to load / download "Walmart Music Store Download". Something about the folder, .msi, etc not being there. I couldn't get rid of it. I could temporarily kill the process then it would come back. This was time coincident with a popup I was getting that my Windows OS might not be real. I found an online solution to disable the "Windows" might not be real popup but I don't remember how I killed the Walmart window. Years ago I did download a few music files from Walmart.

[Darrix]

Preliminarily it appears those photos posted to forums via photobucket are the problem photos. Those uploaded from members PCs are fine. As stated earlier this problem doesn't happen on my Windows 7 PC, only the XP notebook. I cut the bad picks from the XP notebook, pasted to a flash drive and uploaded to the 7 PC. Same bad results; "no header" ....... etc.

[Darrix]

UPDATE: I removed all software (I think) related to my old usb - connected HP printer to include Image Zone (which I liked). Installed software for my newer wireless HP printer and it works. Downloaded Windows Live Photo Viewer to use as my default viewer. Works fine. I really like the black background in HP MediaSmart Photo on my Windows 7 HP notebook, however, looks like there is no XP version. Everything good now except I assume System Restore is still belly up. Don't want to restore now though I wish there was a way to repair / test it. I've successfully downloaded and run 3 .exe files since beginning this thread. So far, so good. I have been using Imgur lately to upload images to one of my forums which doesn't allow uploads from the hard drive. I have no problem downloading those pics directly from the forum yet all those others (less one) were photobucketed and for whatever reason were not happy with my XP.

[Albertojazz]

Thanks for letting us know, happy computing :).

[Albertojazz]

You bet. Thank you. Couple of years ago, shortly after I purchased a new HP DV7, I found myself in dire straits. Ya'll patiently and deliberately got me through it after a number of days. I am forever grateful.