I have seen and tried all the fixes that relate to a blank display in help and msinfo32 - I didn't even find any fixes relating to MS Baseline Security - they didn't fix the problem.

I am pretty sure they all use IE for interacting with the user so I have already done a repair install of XP Pro SP3 and reset Web settings in IE(8). I have also disabled all non-MS Add-ons. I even tried running in VGA mode!

I even tried a repair install with the original SP2 CD and got back to IE6 and the problems still persist.

Can anyone tell me what technologies are used 'below' IE in these applications and how to diagnose if they are working properly and ideally - what to do if not the case!

FYI:

Wscript and cscript can both be invoked from the cmd line 'OK' if that makes a difference.

I have done a regsvr32 for jscript and vbscript DLLs - no change from before to after.

Any ideas of just ideas about what to look for or how to investigate would be very, very welcome...

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can even contribute ideas - a solution would be 'out of this world'...

Cheers, Brian R.

...

And - to be exact re-symptoms: MS Help (.chm files) shows the Index and Contents in the left hand pane and that can be navigated - sadly there is never any text in the right-hand pane. Msinfo32 simply seems to run and exit. Baseline Security shows a white (blank) window with MBSA (in the window title area) in what I assume is IE8.

I am pretty sure they all use IE for interacting with the user so I have already done a repair install of XP Pro SP3 and reset Web settings in IE(8). I have also disabled all non-MS Add-ons. I even tried running in VGA mode!

I even tried a repair install with the original SP2 CD and got back to IE6 and the problems still persist.

Yes, these use IE's COM components to display their contents, so a broken IE install can break these (and other) apps on an XP box.

Can anyone tell me what technologies are used 'below' IE in these applications and how to diagnose if they are working properly and ideally - what to do if not the case!

Usually mshtml.dll and ieframe.dll are involved in UI display with IE8 on the machine, and both are found in the %windir%\system32 folder.

Wscript and cscript can both be invoked from the cmd line 'OK' if that makes a difference.

The script host engine isn't a part of IE, so these should have no bearing. IE just uses these components when parsing script in a page, but the WSH is not a part of IE (nor would it be involved in the current problem you are having).

And - to be exact re-symptoms: MS Help (.chm files) shows the Index and Contents in the left hand pane and that can be navigated - sadly there is never any text in the right-hand pane. Msinfo32 simply seems to run and exit. Baseline Security shows a white (blank) window with MBSA (in the window title area) in what I assume is IE8.

If you've repaired XP SP3, I would suggest installing the latest IE update and perhaps running regsvr32 afterwards on both mshtml.dll and ieframe.dll in \system32 for starters.

MS Help (.chm files) shows the Index and Contents in the left hand pane and that can be navigated - sadly there is never any text in the right-hand pane.

If the .chm is on a network share, try moving it to a local drive and see if the symptoms persist?

If the file is on your local system and still the problem persist, look if the file content is blocked.

Right-click on the file --> properties, on the General tab see if there is an unblock button at the bottom. Click on it to unblock (read the warning) and you may see the content.

This post looks very similar to this one:

http://www.msfn.org/board/blank_content-t136215.html