support

Trouble report 6

"This page provides potentially unsafe information to an ActiveX Control."

Versions affected

V1.0.

Description

This problem seems to only occur with Windows NT and applies only to V1.0.

If you receive either of these messages when running Internet Explorer or other system utilities that use parts of the NT Explorer:

This page provides potentially unsafe information to an ActiveX Control. Your current security settings prohibit running controls in this manner. As a result, this page may not display correctly.

An ActiveX Control on this page is not safe. Your current security settings prohibit running controls on this page. As a result, this page may not display as intended.

This seems to be caused by the installation of comcat.dll version 5.0. Comcat.dll is a Microsoft "redistributable" library necessary to support ActiveX controls. It is included with The Panorama Factory installation because the color wheel is an ActiveX control.

To determine whether you have version 5.0 of comcat.dll, open a file Explorer and browse to c:\winnt\system32. Locate the file comcat.dll. Right click on the file and select "Properties" from the context menu. A properties dialog should appear. Select the "Version" tab. You should see the file version displayed on this dialog.

I learned about this problem by reading this page: http://www.jsiinc.com/default.htm?/TIP0700/rh0763.htm

Workaround

Apparently version 5.0 of comcat.dll disagrees with Windows NT. The workaround described below reinstalls an older version of comcat.dll.

To fix this problem, reinstall comcat.dll. These instructions apply only to Windows NT:

Download comcat_fix.exe (28KB) to
c:\winnt\system32. This is a self-extracting package containing comcat.dll 4.71.

Close all program windows.
Open an MD-DOS prompt window and execute these commands:
cd c:\winnt\system32
rename comcat.dll comcat_5p0.dll
comcat_fix.exe
This will prompt "Unzip to folder." Accept the default value
"c:\winnt\system32."
regsvr32 comcat.dll
You should receive the message DllRegisterServer in comcat.dll succeeded.

Status

Fixed in V1.1 -- which no longer uses ActiveX and therefore no longer installs comcat.dll.

Revised: April 28, 2004