My laptop is not dead, but dying, so I hope it's OK to post here

Sometimes the scrollbars won't show up in certain applications, most notably a Visual Basic app I wrote myself. I'll open a form and there will be text and objects going off the screen to the right and towards the bottom. In the past the scrollbars would render in their respective places, so I'm suspecting this is a problem with my PC. Any ideas?

Sounds like software issue. Probbably some softawre installed out-dated VB runtime dll's or something. Definitely not a dying laptop.

Sounds like software issue. Probbably some softawre installed out-dated VB runtime dll's or something. Definitely not a dying laptop.

That seems odd that the IDE would work from an out-dated .dll. Is there any way to test this and find the offending .dll (assuming there is one)?

Fastest way to find it is explore the System32 folder with "show hidden files" cecked and "hide protected operating system files" unchecked in your folder options. Most of the dlls would date "23.8.2001 14:00"

Older than that means older than windows XP. But Windows XP has protective mechanism that automaticly restores crucial dlls that are overwritten, so older ones you see are the ones that were not protected in such manor.


You can also assume that some old software requires old system dlls. Most software make backup of files that are overwritten. You can browse the folders of those suspect softwares with same option above to see if there are some "backup" folder there.

You can see version of the dll by rightclicking it and selecting the properities.

Fastest way to find it is explore the System32 folder with "show hidden files" cecked and "hide protected operating system files" unchecked in your folder options. Most of the dlls would date "23.8.2001 14:00"

Older than that means older than windows XP. But Windows XP has protective mechanism that automaticly restores crucial dlls that are overwritten, so older ones you see are the ones that were not protected in such manor.


You can also assume that some old software requires old system dlls. Most software make backup of files that are overwritten. You can browse the folders of those suspect softwares with same option above to see if there are some "backup" folder there.

You can see version of the dll by rightclicking it and selecting the properities.

I'm sorry, I'm not quite following you. Are you saying that I should find all .dlls older than 8/2001 and delete them? I found some .dll files that are part of a flexgrid control that I use in my VB programs. This could be the problem, I guess.

No, don't DELETE them. Try searching the windows directory for more instances of that dll. If there is a backup copy in "WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386" folder, compare the dll's version. Higher one is the better one.
Ignore the "WINDOWS\System32\dllcache" instances.

If you happend to find some old dll(s) and if you have newer version that came with SP2, make backup copy of the old one and COPY over it one in SP2 folder (be careful not to MOVE/CUT the one in SP2 folder).

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