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I recently installed a Dell 926 all in one printer/fax/scanner, purchased Jan 07, my PC now freezes without warning. Nature of freeze: Cursor does not move; Alt-Ctrl-Del has no effect, system does no appear to un-freeze spontaneously (still frozen after half an hour). Problem appears to be random, I can use PC for hours on end without a problem but sometimes freezes after only a few minutes.

system specs:

CPU: AMD Athlon 2500+
Motherboard: Asus A7V8X-X
o/s: Windows XP Pro (SP2)

I have installed the latest driver from the Dell website

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This thread shows how third‑party software shipped with multifunction printers can trigger hard, non‑recoverable hangs on older Windows XP systems. tracked the problem back to bundled imaging software; the following checklist explains how to diagnose similar freezes and safe ways to remove or repair the offending installer activity.

  • Reproduce and isolate: boot into Safe Mode (F8 at startup). If freezes stop in Safe Mode, a non‑Microsoft service or startup program is the likely cause.
  • Capture the culprit: run Process Monitor to log file/registry/process activity while reproducing the hang. Filter on msiexec.exe or the vendor process name to see what the installer is trying to do. Process Monitor is a good tool for this.
  • Check Event Viewer: open Application logs and look for entries with source MsiInstaller or errors around the freeze timestamp. Those entries often identify the package or component that failed.
  • Repair Windows Installer: try msiexec /unregister then msiexec /regserver from an elevated Command Prompt. If installer state is corrupt, run Microsoft’s Program Install and Uninstall troubleshooter to clean up broken installs or uninstall stuck packages ().
  • Safe removal strategy: uninstall only the non‑driver imaging/photo component first (leave printer driver if needed). If you must reinstall, install the manufacturer’s driver package only and skip optional third‑party photo managers.

Also keep drivers and Windows Installer updated and use Autoruns or msconfig to disable auto‑launching photo watchers. Where freezes are intermittent and hard to capture, Procmon traces plus Event Viewer entries are the most reliable way to identify the offending MSI activity. For background on the Windows Installer service, see the Windows Installer portal: Windows Installer documentation.

Member Avatar for sheff

Problem was caused by Corel PhotoAlbum software that was installed with printer: msinataller was attempting to instal a missing component, problem solved by uninstalling PhotoAlbum

Sheff

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