Cannot initialize rich text support in Palm Desktop

When opening the Palm Desktop, an error message displays indicating that the desktop cannot initialize rich text support and the open fails.

The likely cause is that your copy of riched32.dll is either missing or corrupt. This dll is a windows dll that should be in your \windows\system directory. Certain viruses are known to mess with this file, so if you find it corrupt, you might want to thoroughly virus check your system with an up to date virus scanner. Simply replacing the corrupt dll will likely not solve all of your problems.

To recover a good riched32.dll, perform the following Microsoft recommended procedure:

  1. Click Start, point to Find, and then click Files or Folders.
  2. In the Named box, type riched32.dll, and then click Find Now.
  3. In the list of found files, right-click the riched32.dll file, click rename, type a new name for the riched32.dll file (such as riched32.xxx), and then press ENTER.
  4. NOTE: If you receive an "Access is denied" error message when you attempt to rename the riched32.dll, follow these steps:
    1. Click start, click shut down, click restart in MS-DOS mode, and then click OK.
    2. At the command prompt, type the following commands, pressing ENTER after each command:
      1. cd  \windows\system
      2. ren  riched32.dll riched32.xxx
      3. exit
  5. Extract the riched32.dll file from the original Windows 95 or Windows 98 disks or CD-ROM to the windows\system folder. For information about how to extract a file, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 129605 How to Extract Original Compressed Windows Files at the link here http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;129605.

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