Hardware Wizard message wont go away

[jofmon]

I have a Dell photo printer 720 installed on my Presario running windows xp with all the updates. I use a USB chord to connect the printer to the laptop. Initially everything was running fine.

My 7yr old daughter did something and ended up uninstalled my printer drivers. I reinstalled the printer using the driver disk and the printer works fine but I now get a pop up from my hardware detection wizard. "Found New Hardware Wizard" Cannot Install This Hardware: an error occurred during installation of the device, System cannot find the specific file.
When I click finish, it simply cycles through and restarts the process and the window pops back up.
I uninstalled, reinstalled the printer this time through the detection wizard with the same results. I then reinstalled using the disk again.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/298370 I went through microsoft for this step and the hardware wizard still pops up.

It doesnt interfere with any other activities. It doesnt affect the printer. Except for the annoying window not going away and the wizard running in the background all seems good.

Any ideas on how to shut this window down for good?
Thanks

[PhilliePhan]

Hi jofmon,

You could give this a try:

Download the attached peek.bat to your desktop and DoubleClick on it to run it.
Please post the log that pops up.

I have a hunch and just want to look at a registry value.....

Cheers
PP

[jofmon]

I ran peek.bat but it doesnt appear to do anything. DOS windows opens up with only a prompt and a blank note pad file named "look".

[PhilliePhan]

I ran peek.bat but it doesnt appear to do anything. DOS windows opens up with only a prompt and a blank note pad file named "look".

That is pretty much what I was looking for. That particular key in the registry no longer exists. So, we need to create a new one.

-- Please Uninstall the printer and reboot your machine.

-- Please download the attached FixMe.reg to your desktop and DoubleClick on it and allow it to merge into the registry. Let me know if you have problems with this. An easy way to see if you were successful is to run Peek.bat again.

-- Reboot and then Install the printer again and let me know how things are working for you now.

Please complete the steps above exactly as I wrote them - this may help in the diagnostic process if the problem continues, though this idea is pretty much all I've got.....

Best Luck
PP

[jofmon]

Sorry for the delay but it worked. Thanks much for for the direction!!!! Any clue on how that might have happened?

I really appreciate you taking the time to help me work through it.

[PhilliePhan]

Sorry for the delay but it worked. Thanks much for for the direction!!!! Any clue on how that might have happened?
I really appreciate you taking the time to help me work through it.

You're welcome! Happy to help

As for what may have happened . . . . it could be a number of things. Windows is a complex PITA and it is always writing to the registry (its brain) - somewhere along the line that key went AWOL.

Cheers
PP