Invalid Page Fault

Hi there, when my friend tries to log on to her PC at home it gives the following message:-

EXPLORER CAUSED AND INVALID PAGE FAULT IN MODULE EXPLORER.EXE AT 0167:00401F3E.

What would be the best steps to rectify this and will i loose the contents of her hard disk? The problem arose when I went into 'add/remove programs' and removed some **** thing that kept 'popping up' (pardon the pun).

All help will be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Gerd.

 

I usually find the best way to track down these very poorly made error
messages is, for example in your case, to type them into the search field
of a search engine (eg Google.com)
Type
0167 00401F3E
note that you should omit the : after the 7
regards

 

I would download and run Spybot, AdAware and also do a full virus scan with updated definitions, in case you have other "strangers" still hanging on.

merlin: FYI, in case you were unaware, those numbers are the virtual memory address where Explorer failed.

 

I know ...
regards

 

I moved this over to this forum as I also believe you have something else going on.
I would go to Start\Run and type in Msconfig and press Enter. Click on Startup tab, and uncheck everything but the Scanregw, both PowerProf, and Systray.
Then if you get past the error, download and update and then scan with the programs WhitPhil suggested. You can find them at the Quicklinks page below.