I have VISIO 2013 running under Windows 10. After years of working fine, I have a sudden major glitch. When I start the program, it tries to run every last single installer on my system. Everything, in alphabetical order. I can't actually get into the program to run it, because installers keep popping up.



I tried uninstalling VISIO and reinstalling. That did not fix the problem.

When I run VISIO in Safe mode, it starts and works fine. But of course I lose a bunch of routine Windows and VISIO features. If I then exit and restart in normal mode, I get the same problem again.

I tried running VISIO in compatibility mode (Win 7). It did not fix the problem. I tried running VISIO in Administrator mode. It starts by asking if I'll allow VISIO to make changes to the computer? If I say 'yes', I get the same problem. If I say 'No', then VISIO doesn't start at all.

I do not have this problem with any of my other Office 2013 programs. (I am running Office in 64 bit mode.)

I notice when I uninstall VISIO and then skim through the system registry, there are a tone of VISIO keys that remain behind. Maybe one of them is the problem. Is there a program that will really do a total, clean uninstall of VISIO? Or can someone recommend a particular magic key that needs to be fixed or removed?

If this is of any help, the very first "bad" dialog box I get when I start VISIO (in normal mode) is 'Component MSADODC.OCX or one of its dependencies not registered correctly: a file is missing or invalid."

Any help/advice is appreciated. (I am thinking of simply updating to VISIO 2016, but I hate to do that -- every upgrade seems to come with changes I don't like. And besides, I'm not sure if I can do that without updating all of Office to 2016).

This looks more like a generic Windows registry corruption to me. You could try a registry cleaner like CCleaner. If not then I think the only fix might be a total Windows reinstall.

I don't recommend a total Windows reinstall to fix this. The fact that opening in Safe Mode should be the clue to solving this.

It sounds like you have a macro (with virus-like behaviour) in one of your templates that is running as you open the application. You say that opening in Safe Mode prevents "routine Windows and VISIO features". I would question what those features are because Visio shouldn't be necessary to provide routine Windows features.

I would be going to the Developer Tab and looking at which COM addins are running and disable any that might appear there. I would also check how you are opening Visio - by default, my Visio opens with the application only and not actually a new document. Then I can choose a template. If you are opening Visio with a new document then I would question what code is included in the template for that new document.

__________________
Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

Another idea, open the Registry Editor and look ay key:
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Offi ce\15.0\Visio\Application
and look at item:
StartUpPath
It should probably be blank.


I doubt it's a template as any code in templates don't activate just by starting Visio.

OP: Thank you all for the above suggestions. I did find a fix.

Visio had about 70 or 75 registry entries. When I uninstalled the program, there were still roughly 30 or 35 entries related to Visio.

I found a program called Registry Finder (www.registry-finder.com), which is an improved substitute for RegEdit. With Registry Finder (in Admin mode) I was able to delete all the remaining Visio registry entries. Then I reinstalled Visio 2013. It installed fine and started fine in normal mode.

There had been a particular document that was causing problems, before the big problem cropped up. It seems to be acting fine now as well.