Windows 2000 explorer fails

I have Win2000 pro.
Each time 'My Computer', 'control panel' or Search is launched I receive a message :-
Explorer.exe has generated errors and will be closed by windows. You will need to restart the program.
An Error log is being created.

If I view the event viewer log I see a source of Winlogon and an event ID 1002. Description is 'The shell stopped unexpectedly and explorer.exe was restarted.

This is a friends laptop (Dell Lattitude) running Windows 2000 professional with service pack 3. Internet explorer 5 is installed.

Any help will be greatfully accepted

 

start~run~sfc /scannow and let the utility locate any bad or missing system files and replace them. If you aren't using an install CD with the OS and SP3 slipstreamed together you will need to reapply the SP after the sfc does it's thing.

If the system file check doesn't fix you up, post back.

 

Many thanks for the response.

I did this - sfc did not report any errors or problems (to the screen anyway).

I re-applied the SP3 as advised and the problem still exists.

For information I found an item on big M's knowledgebase - article 275599 where symptoms appear similar but there is no homesite or coldfusion installed and I have checked out the dll's and they appear to be also not present (using DOS dir as explorer is not working!!!)

 

Hopefully someone will jump in with ideas.

I plan to dig around for a cause & fix but will be very short on research time for the next day or so ... expect a delay.

 

Some ideas...

Is the Dell laptop still in warranty? If yes, call Dell. If they don't recognize the problem and have a step-by-step fix, they'll probably have you restore the system to delivered state. This may lose your data for you. But you can do that after you have exhausted other efforts.

What drivers may have been recently installed? What software may have been recently installed? What does a scan by your anti-virus software reveal? What version of IE is running?

Reboot - Press F8 when your boot menu is displayed - In safe mode, does the problem still occur? If no, check drivers that may have recently changed. Check the video driver and set it for the recommended resolution (see Dell documentation) or tell it to reset to the defaults.

Stop (potentially infected) startup processes that may be whacking explorer.

Stop startups that are not needed.

If McAfee AV, try temporarily stopping that and see if the problem goes away.

Q326612 -- note the conditions for the re-install of SP3.

 

Many thanks for these suggestions.

Unfortunately the laptop is out of warranty.

I appreciate that the last resort will be to re-load all but I am trying to avoid if at all possible - and now this is a challenge!

The laptop came to me with a virus - lovegate - this was removed by using the symantec tool.

Version of IE is 5.0 - I had wondered about upgrading - but this was working before.

The same problem exists when booted in safe mode - that suprised me I must admit.

In the device manager there appears to be no issues with devices. The display adapter is a ATI Rage Mobility 128. When in safe mode the display properties shows a default monitor on VGA with 16 colours and 640x480 pixels.

I am not aware of any recent drivers being added (but how do I tell?)

The virus software that was installed was F-secure - I have now removed this pending re-connection to the internet.

I did take note of the special conditions for SP3 - just to make sure I re-played the service pack 3 upgrade and killed
explorer.exe from task manager before re-installing

All to no avail unfortunately..... and I am watching this space very carefully!

 

I was hoping...

I checked out all the registry entries and the entries are all as you would have expected - ie the values that the article tells you to change to.

I did however find reference to some files that look to have been a hangover from the virus - namely windriver.exe winhelp.exe and netservices.exe - I have renamed these out now - and checked that they had not corrupted the registry and all seems in order.

So no luck on this one either unfortunately.

 

Many thanks for your continued thoughts.

I had in fact run this tool to clear up the original virus - that was on version 1.0.8 - so I run the version you had pointed out (1.0.9) and this reported that there is no lovegate virus's reported.

Your last comment - if this means running sfc /scannow from an install disk then I have done this as suggested earlier by Newt. I then re-applied the SP3.

But the problem still exists!