New IE 6 startup problem

[Robert Wagner]

I'm trying to help a next door (business) neighbor who yesterday
encountered a new problem: When he tries to open Internet Explorer, he
gets the sandtimer cursor for about 5-10 seconds, then nothing (except
normal cursor). No window opens, and no button for IE appears in the
taskbar and no IE menubar appears. (This is IE 6, SP1 running under
Windows ME.) When he checks the Task Manager, an instance of
Iexplore.exe is present. Multiple attempts to open IE produces multiple
instances in the Task Manager window.

He connects to the internet through a cable modem (RoadRunner). His
email service is working fine. We tried reinstalling IE (but NOT
allowing replacement of newer instances of DLLs). That didn't make any
difference.

TIA for any help on this problem.
--
Robert R. Wagner
ExpanTest, Inc.
22 Monument Square, Suite 503
Portland, ME 04101-4031
(207) 871-0224
http://www.gwi.net/expantest/
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP]

I'm trying to help a next door (business) neighbor who yesterday
encountered a new problem: When he tries to open Internet Explorer, he
gets the sandtimer cursor for about 5-10 seconds, then nothing (except
normal cursor). No window opens, and no button for IE appears in the
taskbar and no IE menubar appears. (This is IE 6, SP1 running under
Windows ME.) When he checks the Task Manager, an instance of
Iexplore.exe is present. Multiple attempts to open IE produces
multiple instances in the Task Manager window.

He connects to the internet through a cable modem (RoadRunner). His
email service is working fine. We tried reinstalling IE (but NOT
allowing replacement of newer instances of DLLs). That didn't make any
difference.

TIA for any help on this problem.

See
Dealing with Unwanted Spyware, Parasites, Toolbars and Search Engines
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm