win98se EXPLORER illegal operation

[paul3571]

Everytime i start up my computer it states

EXPLORER.EXE
This program has performed an illegal operation and will
be shut down.

followed by this all i see is the background colour of windows, no desktop icons,no start button,no taskbar, no nothing.

I thought i would be clever and start up in safe mode (F8).
Exact same problem again,nothing but that light green windows background colour.

I think it is a VIRUS?????
A complete format is in order, but i would like to retrieve a few files off my computer before wiping its brains!!!!!

any ideas anyone........??????????

paul3571

[paul9]

have you got an emergency boot disk and a spare hard drive? a cruddy old one will do. set it to slave before you plug it up. or a knoppix cd will let you burn your files to cd if you have a writer on your system.

[Gilthanaz]

Knoppix is a great tool for data recovery. I downloaded it just to mess around and learn the basics of linux, but was able to put it to good use when my friend's winME wouldn't boot. Its a shot in the dark, but you could try restoring your registry if you have a backup from a time before this error started occuring.

[paul3571]

Some excellent ideas which i will try but 1st i have more questions!!!
thankyou very much.

Is there any way i could replace the EXPLORER.EXE file on the harddrive in DOS mode.
I have a floppy boot disc and my WIN 98 SE cd.

What about just installing over the top of win98 se again?????
I just want to get the computer going again and check all files that i want to keep and then reformatt the harddrive.
Will this work and will all my files remain untouched by a fresh install over the top of win98 se?????

Any replies genuinely appreciated
paul3571

[noprob]

seems to me were I in your shoes,I would bootup using the win98 startup disk.
then I would choose without cd support.
thereafter once the floppy was done makin' it's noise & at the a prompt,I would then type in -> edit
then key in enter.
you would be at a blue screen,key in and let go in this order,
alt,f,o
that will throw up the good ole dos editor.
by using your up/down/left/right arrow keys and or the Tab key you will be able to navigate to hopefully any folder/file.
now should you have another hard drive installed you could use the dos command ->copy<space>c:\myfile.whatever extention<space>d:\
then key in enter.
I read the book"Dos for Dummies" long ago when using win95B since I believed windows layed on dos,so I learned the basics of dos to manipulate winDOwS.
If you do not understand this then I would suggest reading maybe?
it's a great book had me laughing my you know what off.
hilarious book,but very informative.
hopefully I've helped out some?

[gibblewabble]

you could install overtop but you are risking overwriting all your personal documents.

if you press the crtl key at start up and choose safe mode command prompt.
then at the c: prompt type in cd \windows
then "edit system.ini" scroll down to find the shell command
"shell=explorer.exe"
if there is a process call after that "shell=explorer.exe some program"
add a line after the shell line with this in it"shell=explorer.exe"
save the file and reboot to see if this works then scan for a virus cause that is usually what does this sort of mess, I see it all the time.

good luck and reinstall as a last chance you learn more that way.

[Iturea]

Since your at your last rope you might as well try to repair your registry. That error is common with a bad pointer in the registry. 98 is the king of explorer.exe errors.

Boot into a dos prompt (Windows 98 boot disk) and type scanreg /fix at the c: prompt..

Good luck,
Danny

[Gilthanaz]

Originally posted by paul3571
Some excellent ideas which i will try but 1st i have more questions!!!
thankyou very much.

Is there any way i could replace the EXPLORER.EXE file on the harddrive in DOS mode.

paul3571

Yes, but I dont know if you can from the CD. Im running windows 98 and Iturea is right that it likes to have problems with explorer.exe sometimes. I learned from this and everytime i reinstall i make a backup of that file (along with a few others) in a folder i have called system backups. Then when you get an error like this, you can replace it with the good file in DOS and hope it fixes it. You may not be able do it this time, but for the future, its a very good thing to do

Goodluck, reformats arent THAT bad

[paul3571]

To all the people with your suggestions THANKYOU VERY MUCH!!!!

I will try them and let you know in the next couple of days how i went!!!!!

EXCELLENT FORUM
(the best ive used ever)
paul3571

[paul3571]

THANKYOU FOR ALL SUGGESTIONS!!!!!!!!!
But alas saving my files to another harddrive and reformatting was the only way to fix this problem!!!!!

I tried upgrading to xp pro but the installation would get to 95%
and freeze!!!!
I tried 3 times and then said "stuff it" and put WIN 98 SE back on!!!

paul3571