Just about every problem IE can have

I have been helping a friend, in another city, with an IE problem. At first it would not open and gave the enigmatic error "ie is experiencing a problem and will close now ". After updating Norton AV and running a scan (@27 viruses) loading SpyBot and running it (157 hits) and installing ZoneAlarm, IE will now open. The problem, as I have seen here often, is that it will not allow any secure sites. This includes windows update. It tells me that the security settings (active X) will not allow it. The security setting is okay but will not save any changes. Firefox 0.8 works fine.

I recently tried running sfc /scannow and this would not run. Tried to reinstall IE 6 SP 1 from the Microsoft site and got the message "the software you are installing has not passed Windows Logo testing to verify it’s compatibility with Windows XP. The software will not be installed ". IE still works but the problem remains.

I can only get to the computer @ once a week so any ideas will take a while for me to try.

Her system: Dell Dimension 4550, Windows XP SP 1 (build 2600), IE v 6 SP 1, 2.4 Ghz Pentium 4, WD 60 G HD, 256 MGs memory, Bios-Dell Corp A02 10/2/2002

 

Is it possible the version of IE is from her ISP? At this point, I would probably do a complete uninstall of IE and reinstall.

 

IE

It is Micosoft's .....
A reformat may be in the future but I am trying to check other options also. May as well try to learn some things as long as I am at this.

 

Have you tried windows update with everything else turned off, including zone alarm and virus scan?

 

No, but I'll add that to the list of things I will try before a reformat

 

I'd say that if you can't get sfc to run, there is such a major problem that the system is beyond salvage.

Have you tried booting to safe mode to run sfc?

Before that, try booting to the recovery console and running chkdsk c: /r from there (assuming the OS partition is C: ).