Explorer Error

Hi,
My friend called me tonight and said that he had just scanned his disk and defragged it after shutting down all the programs except for Explorer and Systray. When it was finished he restarted it and received just a white screen and when he clicked the Start Key, it was hung up. He then went to Alt-Cntr-Delete and saw that "Explorer" was not responding. He tried this several times without success. I then had him put in the Windows 98 startup disk and went through the ScanDisk C:. It took an hour or more to scan it but this didn't make any difference. When he booted up again Explore is still not responding.

Do you have any suggestions what to try next. I'm lost.

Jean

 

Start in Safe Mode, and use the System File Checker [sfc.exe] to replace Explorer.Exe from the Win CD or wherever the setup files are located.

 

Does it start up in safemode?:

How to:
Reboot the system and either hold the Ctrl key down right after memory post or when you see the "Starting Windows…" dialogue, touch/continuously_tap the F8 key. This can be bit tricky "timing wise" for some and may take more than once or twice to catch.

From the startup menu choose "safemode "

 

Hi,
Yes, he was able to boot it in safe mode. When he got there I just had him check the device manager to see if there were any question marks or exclamation marks but there were none.

I just didn't know where to go from there. I had him do another Ctrl-Alt-Delete and the Explorer was still not responding.

What would be the next step. How do we repair the Explorer not responding problem. I think that is the big problem.

Thanks for your help.

Jean

 

Have you tried my suggestion in my previous post and replace the possibly corrupted Explorer.Exe file?

 

Oops, I didn't remember to do what you suggested in the earlier post. Sorry. I'll give it a try with my friend tomorrow and let you know.

I have a terrible head cold right now and cough and am not concentrating as I should be.

Jean

 

Hi everyone.

We did boot the computer again in safe mode, ran SFC and tried to extract the explorer.exe from the Restore disk but we couldn't find it on the CD. It is a compaq computer and we don't have a windows 98 disk.

In any case, we ran the SFC again and scanned the disk for altered files. We don't know what we did but it seems as though the explorer.exe is OK now. I don't know for how long though.

If the computer stops again is there somewhere else (such as another Windows 98 computer) we can copy the explorer.exe from and extract it to my friends computer?

I'm just not sure where to get the correct explorer file if we can't find it on the Restore Disk.

But for now it is working, thank you everyone for your help.

Jean

 

Your windows setup files may be located in the folder C:\Windows\Options\Cabs. Browse to that folder when using SFC, you could get Explorer.Exe from there.

 

Thank you, markp62, I will keep this information for the future, if necessary.
Jean

Happy Holidays!