Fix: Getting Chrome to work on WinXP SP3

Fix: Getting Chrome to work on WinXP SP3

Pretty much everyone harping about Google's Chrome these days. I know. I'm one of them too. Which is also why it's so frustrating when I couldn't get Chrome to work on my work notebook which is running Windows XP SP3. Countless searches showed quite a number too suffered the same problem as I did. Google Chrome would install. But it would mysteriously close the import settings dialog box nor would it uninstall itself. The portable version which can be found if you searched for it in Google won't run too. Chrome would simply load and closes itself. Interesting isn't it.

It seems like something in Windows is clashing with the Chrome process and is forcing it to close.

And indeed it was.

Thankfully, someone found out that it was Ctfmon.exe that was causing Chrome to always fail for some reason. So, all you need to do is to simply disable the process and Google Chrome would work just fine. The trick was how that can be done. Again, that merely requires you to check out the Microsoft's support site and the instructions are all spelled out there. In fact, it tells you how to remove Ctfmon.exe entirely.

But before removing it, you might want to check and see if you really need the process or not. Now according to Microsoft, ‘Ctfmon.exe monitors the active windows and provides text input service support for speech recognition, handwriting recognition, keyboard, translation, and other alternative user input technologies.’ Sounds to me like something I don't need at all (thankfully!)

And apparently, all you need to do is to unregister a couple of dlls, reboot and you'll then be able to enjoy using Chrome! Yup. A very simple and painless fix indeed!

Run Regsvr32 /U on the Msimtf.dll and Msctf.dll Files
1. Click Start and then click Run.
2. In the Run dialog box, type the following command:
Regsvr32.exe /u msimtf.dll
3. Click OK.
4. Repeat steps 1 through 3 for the Msctf.dll file.
5. Reboot.

Of course, Microsoft's not to be blamed here. It's Google that needs to get this fixed in the next few beta releases. Just that, it's Google Chrome and I just have to get it installed on my work notebook! LOL! Anyway, I hope that this has been helpful to you too if you happen to stumble on my site when looking for a fix to this temporary problem.

Update: Looks like there's an easier way to resolve this problem if you do not want to unregister ctfmon! Thanks to Jack Boling, all you need to do is to go to the properties of the Chrome shortcut and ‘click on the Compatability Tab and check Turn off advanced text services for this program’. So, here's a solution for you guys who need ctfmon for other apps but still want to run Chrome!

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