When I login explorer keeps crashing to blank screen

[Ian]

When I login to my windows xp sr3 PC explorer keeps crashing to blank screen.
I can get task manager and run cmds. If I try to run explorer again it just
crashes repeatedly.

I really need some help please.

 

[The Real Truth MVP]

Try my Explorer Shell Fix tool. Download it here
http://pcbutts1.com/downloads/tools/tools.htm

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

315341 - How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation or Repair) of
Windows XP: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341

--
Use the "Ratings" feature. It helps the new users.
Please use the Communities guidelines when posting.
http://www.microsoft.com/wn3/locales/help/help_en-us.htm
Mark L. Ferguson MS-MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Mark.Ferguson

 

[Ian]

I really appreciate you answering. The utilities look great. I tried the
explorer one you reccommended. Unfortunately it seems to try to launch
explorer and before it gets anywhere it crashes, so it trys again and it
crashes... after a couple of attempts i get the follwoing message

"windows cannot find idlist', 4244:2956 c:\documents make sure you type the
name correctly......"

it has a button for OK but the message just goes after a few seconds...

does any of the above help you to know what could be suddenly causing this.
Nothing that i did or noticed changed on my PC before this, explorer just
suddenly started crashing.

again any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Ian]

Hi, and thanks for replying. I was trying to avoid the drastic options like
reinstall. I did put my windows xp cd in to boot from that to try a repair
but windws just tells me the version on the CD is to old and it wont allow me
to do it. My PC is about 6 years old and its the original xp professional
disk that came with it. I guess with all the updates it has to sp3 and beyond
it just cant do it for some reason. although it does seem a bit strange.

do you have any other ideas please.

 

[The Real Truth MVP]

I think your system is infected. Use my Remove-it software. Choose yes for
all options when prompted. Download it here
http://pcbutts1.com/downloads/tools/tools.htm when done do a complete
antivirus scan with your updated antivirus software.

 

[Ian]

Same sort as message as last time. I think the tool needs explorer to be up
and running and stable to work and since mine isn't it wont run

 

[The Real Truth MVP]

No it does not need explorer running in order to run.


--
The Real Truth http://pcbutts1-therealtruth.blogspot.com/

Same sort as message as last time. I think the tool needs explorer to be
up
and running and stable to work and since mine isn't it wont run

 

[Ian]

Must have been something else then... In the end I have gone back to basics
and taken explorer.exe off another up to date PC onto a usb stick and then
using dos renamed the corrupt version on my unstable pc to explorer.bac and
then copied explorer.exe off the usb stick onto the unstable pc. This seemed
to improve things as it stopped crashing when I ran it from task manager. But
it would always crash on login and I would have to manually run it again from
task manager to get it to stay up.

I then decided to force a complete sp3 update. Obviously that has meant I
have lost a few updates but it has got the PC completely stable and now it
boots and shutdowns down fine.

windows update will I'm sure will catch things back up over the next week or
so.

I want to thank you for all your help and advice and I have added your
webpage to my favourites as I'm sure there will be times in the future when
those utilities will prove to be very useful.

Thanks again Ian.

 

[The Real Truth MVP]

Great glad you got things worked out.