error loading Explorer.exe

When booting up today, I got the following: "Error loading Explorer.exe
You must reinstall Windows ". Have searched for this type problem on this site and tried the solutions, as well as microsofts data base. Nogo.

Finally, even tried to reinstall windows. Still the same problem.

Running win98se.
Have done restores with successful restore, but the problem remains.

Any ideas?

 

Not sure if the reinstall went ok, but do this. Boot to a Command Prompt, and enter in this command edit c:\windows\system.ini
You will have a text editor appear with a file open in it. Look for this line;
shell=Explorer.exe
That is all it should say, if anything else is there, please note the filename, then edit the line so it is as I have it here.
If something else is there, this is a good indication you are infected with something.

Have done restores with successful restore, but the problem remains.
All this does is restore the registry, it doesn't do a system restore (replacing files) such as you might know ME or XP will do

 

Did the command prompt. Explorer is all there is there under shell.

Tried a reinstall. Goes ok until system restart. Then, the error loading explorer.exe pops up again and freezes up.

 

Until someone else comes up with something I am not thinking of, I suggest extracting the file manually.
Boot the computer with a boot floppy, choose CDrom support. Before the A:\> prompt appears, there is a message giving you the drive letter for the CD drive, it may be E:. Use this letter in place of the X below.

Insert your Win98 CD, and use these commands, pressing Enter at the end of each line.
c:
cd\windows
extract /y X:\win98\win98_45.cab explorer.exe
You should get the message "1 file(s) extracted" when successful.
Remove floppy and reboot.

 

Did that and got something that I couldn't read before it flashed to a blue screen with this "VFAT Device Initialization Failed" (a device or resource required by VFAT is not present or is unavailable. VFAT cannot continue loading. System halted.

 

Actually, says its extracting explorer.exe
Then, c:\WINDOWS>
When I type in win to boot up I get something to do with the registry and then, the above stuff in my other post.

 

Maybe this?

Error Message: VFAT Device Initialization Failed

 

When you did the reinstall of Windows, did you boot to a Windows Startup floppy or startup to the Win 98SE CD? If not, you should boot to one of those (cold start, from shutdown, not Restart or boot to a command prompt) and run setup from there.

So, have the Windows Startup floppy in the floppy drive or the Win 98SE CD in the CD drive. When you start the computer you will get to a A:\ prompt (in the lines above the A:\ prompt it will tell you the designation of the CD drive's lettering, let's say, E:\).

Type and enter the CD's drive letter, so:
E: [Enter]
Type and enter
setup [Enter]

Matt
[BillyBob may remember a similar thread ]

 

OK, let me back up to the beginning and see if this makes sense.

After the prompt "Error loading Explorer.exe
You must reinstall Windows ", I click OK and this error starting program pops up "A required .DLL file, C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\COMCTL32.DLL, was not found ".

(Floppy drive has not worked in years and even then, I didn't use it), So, I booted from the CDROM in safe mode, by command prompt, etc. and get the same thing.

After all this, I tried reinstalling and got the above stuff.

So, yes, I have looked at the VFAT thread.

Will try things again, today, while I am fresh thinking.

 

markp62,
Retried your suggestion about extracting the file manually, this time got the error "cannot open file ".

 

Just tried reinstall again. Goes all the way to the end and hangs at checking for plug and play. Then, throws up the reinstall windows and .dll file missing mess again!

Please help! I have files on here that I was working on that are not backed up and desparately need!

 

Well, I'm not sure what you can do to get your current Windows running. But, if nobody else has any ideas and you need to recover your files, you could try renaming your Windows folder from DOS and then install Windows again. If things go OK, you'd end up with a brand new Windows setup. The downside would be that none of your programs would work. They wouldn't be in your start menu and if you wanted to use them you'd have to reinstall them. Drivers would have to be installed again also. Your Windows would be just like a brand new install.

However, your data files would still be there and you'd at least be able to get at them so you could back them up. Once you've done that, you could either continue using it as is (assuming things all work right) or format and start over.

Before you did that though, you could do a virus scan on the drive and perhaps it would find something in the old windows folder. If it did, you could boot to DOS again, rename the new Windows folder to something different and then rename the old Windows folder back to Windows. Then reboot and see if you can get into the old setup. Odds are against it but it might be worth a try. If it still doesn't boot, just rename things again to get back to the new setup.

To rename the windows folder, boot from your Win98 CD and at the boot menu choose command prompt only. Then, at the a prompt, type the following lines pressing enter after each one.

c:
ren windows winold

Then press ctrl+alt+delete to reboot. Let it boot from the CD again and install Windows as you would normally. If everything went as planned and you decided to just use it this way, you could delete the old Windows folder once you're sure you're done with it.

 

I agree with Zander, but if you want to try extracting COMCTL32.DLL do this.

c:
cd\windows\system
extract /y X:\win98\win98_27.cab comctl32.dll

However the sudden apparent disappearance of these files is an indication of other problems

 

Comctl32.dll on my system has a date modified of 2002, so I would guess that it is a Windows Update modified file. (Windows Update has modified the original.) I am not using my normal computer, otherwise I could tell you what programs it relates to. There is a dll search engine at the MS website.

Disconnect any added hardware (pull out any PCI cards, etc) and try the reinstall again. The CD disk you are using is free of marks or scratches?

Zander's workaround sounds good to me if you cannot get further.

The registry of the original install may be corrupt. There should be several backups of the registry. I don't have any of my information about restoring the registry on this computer. Look up about restoring a backup of the registry at the MS knowledgebase (anyone think this is a worthy course of action?)

Matt

 

Thanks, guys. I'll try to extract the file again before I do the reinstall under a different name. That was my last resort as I have had problems doing that before. But, am seriously wondering if maybe a virus got by undetected.

Thanks again for your help. I'll let you know what happens.

 

Ok, the extract file option was nogo....

Reinstalled win98 in another file name (windows.000). Things seem to be ok. Files are intact so far. No viruses detected, yet...........

Once I get these files backed up, do you think it safe to go in and remove the old windows setup? I had a problem once before with having both (windows and windows.000). Should I just leave it and hope it doesn't cause a problem? At least maybe I'll remember to back things up more often.

 

I can't see any problem stemming from deleting the old Windows folder. I've done it myself in the past and never had a problem. There's really no reason to keep it if you don't want to try continuing the fight. You're new Windows shouldn't even know it exists. If it were me, I'd delete it. Just my two cents worth.