Can't load XPCOM

[Bill Slack]

After installing Thunderbird (v31.7.0) on this old Vista laptop two
weeks ago, it keeps telling me that it 'can't load XPCOM' the first time
I start it after booting up. I assume this is some sort of add-on or
maybe a DLL, but the only way to fix this is to re-install TB on top of
the old install.

My emails aren't disturbed, but several things have to be re-checked to
gather up mail automatically.

Is there a fix for this other than a re-install every time?

Thanks.

[Bill Slack]

Brian wrote on 05/29/2015 10:38:

> Maybe this will help.
>
> http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=2877035
>

Thanks for the link, Brian. Let me check that out.

[Bill Slack]

The information in the link was potentially dangerous. It advised to go
to the Start and enter "%temp%" into the search space. This did, in
fact, open up a temp folder, BUT that folder was the User's appdata temp
folder. Deleting the contents of that will mess up pretty much every app
you have on your computer. I knew the advice meant the SYSTEM temp
folder, which is located in another place. Even then, you shouldn't
delete the entire contents willy-nilly as that could break the OS.

So, I appreciate the input, but I'm going to hold off on using the info
in the link.

[Bill]

Brian wrote on 05/29/2015 14:43:

> I wholeheartedly disagree, but it is your computer and you must be comfortable
> with anything you choose to do. Good luck.
>

Well. Would you agree that there is a huge difference between:

C:\windows\temp

and

C:\users\(myname)\appdata\local\temp

Because the latter is the one that opens when you use "%temp%" as
advised in the article.

But I see no future in debating the issue, as I will be leaving Vista
for Linux soon anyway.

[B00ze/Empire]

On 2015-05-29 15:18, Bill <dhr...@gmailNOSPAM.com> wrote:

[snip]

>>> The information in the link was potentially dangerous. It advised to go
>>> to the Start and enter "%temp%" into the search space. This did, in
>>> fact, open up a temp folder, BUT that folder was the User's appdata temp
>>> folder. Deleting the contents of that will mess up pretty much every app
>>> you have on your computer. I knew the advice meant the SYSTEM temp
>>> folder, which is located in another place. Even then, you shouldn't
>>> delete the entire contents willy-nilly as that could break the OS.

You can't break windoze by deleting the contents of %temp% ...
Whatever is in use will not delete, everything else is crud that you can
delete - the same for C:\Windows\Temp...

> Well. Would you agree that there is a huge difference between:
> C:\windows\temp
> and
> C:\users\(myname)\appdata\local\temp

Nope, they are both the same.

> But I see no future in debating the issue, as I will be leaving Vista
> for Linux soon anyway.

Good luck with Linux.
Best Regards,

--
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! (o o) Member-+-David-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/Planetary-Society-+-
oO-( )-Oo Dr who?

[Bill]

B00ze/Empire wrote on 06/04/2015 22:33:
> On 2015-05-29 15:18, Bill <dhr...@gmailNOSPAM.com> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>

>> Well. Would you agree that there is a huge difference between:
>> C:\windows\temp
>> and
>> C:\users\(myname)\appdata\local\temp
>
> Nope, they are both the same.
>

No. They are definitely NOT the same. One is your personal 'temp'
storage and the other is for the system (in this case, Windows). They
have different contents and can have a completely different result if
you delete things from them. I do agree that /most/ things that are in
use will not delete, but it is possible to delete something that a
background program is using if the program isn't currently running.

[B00ze/Empire]

If it's not running then it's obviously not using any files. If it *is*
running and using something in TEMP, even in the "background" (e.g. the
system scheduler is currently running another process and yours is
sleeping) then whatever file is in use will be locked and you will not
be able to delete it. Of course, it *is* possible to screw-up something,
but you have to want it: Like emptying TEMP in the middle of installing
a program. But Windoze will keep on working just fine, you'll just
screw-up the install of that program.

Trust us, you can delete the contents of both folders and nothing bad
will happen provided you don't on purpose do something stupid during the
operation, like starting an install. In fact, your "personal" temp is in
\Local, which is not saved when using roaming profiles - the ENTIRE
Local is left on the PC. This means you can delete the entire
AppData\Local and it'll just reCreate the next time you log on and some
program caching data there realizes its cache is gone.

Also, do you know of the "CleanUp Wizard" that's built into Windoze? The
first thing this does is offer to delete your entire TEMP folder. If
Microsoft does it, it's ok for you to do it. In fact if you dont, one
day that temp folder will be wasting 20G of space on your system
partition, which will become full and you'll get the "CleanUp Wizard"
automatically...

Personally, I have a logoff-script that deletes most things in all the
temp folders everywhere in Windows. Once in a while I go and manually
delete whatever the script left behind. Never suffered any impact, but I
never expected any either...

Finally - If you are unsure, just copy the contents of TEMP somewhere,
then empty it and see if Thunderbird will start. You can always copy
everything back into temp...

Best Regards,

--
! _\|/_ Sylvain / B00...@nospam.hotmail.com
! (o o) Member-+-David-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/Planetary-Society-+-

oO-( )-Oo We are everywhere! Unfortunately, so are they.