Windows Problem
 

I can't open any folders from the desktop. When i click on My Computer or My Documents, it says this program has caused an error, windows will now restart Explorer.exe. It restarts, and the problem is still there. It doesn't help if i restart the computer either. The only way i can get to these folders is if i go into internet explorer and type them in the address bar. (once i get in "my computer", every folder works once inside. Just not from the desktop.) Im confused because i have no idea how this happened. I turned on a screensaver last night and now the problem is here.

It would help what Operating System you're talking about. ;)

no easy solution. reinstall windows.

oops, its windows 2000 professional. I have to reformat? That totaly sucks though.

Get a new computer. Always works for me. :)

It sounds like explorer.exe may be corrupted, but for the icons to appear on the desktop explorer.exe must be running.

Are you sure its not just the shortcuts that are bad?

Try running windows explorer from the start menu, if that doesnt work, try this: start > run > explorer.exe.

If it still doesnt work it'd be fairly safe to say that it has been corrupted somehow, and in that case backing up and reinstalling would probably be the easiest solution.

I've accidentally deleted the .lnk file type before on a windows95 computer. Had to reinstall windows to fix the shortcuts. Don't know if this is your problem or not.

I used to have a relatively clean copy of the Win2K EXPLORER.EXE (modded the start menu banner resource) but it got lost when the computer was repossessed by my father's former employer.

I can't run it from start menu or from the run program. I guess i'll have to reformat then. How could this have happened overnight? I did find a bunch of porn ads on my desktop and in my start menu when i first found the problem. Those damn things are sooo annoying! (Could that have hurt it somehow?)

Maybe whatever put them on your desktop installed a virus as well. This is my guess.

at least this isn't your problem.

261186 - Computer Randomly Plays Classical Music.

Definately sounds suspect, im guessing you were browsing with your IE security settings at low or something. A malicious activex control could have messed it up, or it could be a virus.

I think you'll be able to fix it though...and if this works you'll owe me bigtime cos i had to dig thru a pile of cd's to find a win2k cd...:p

If you try this i'd definately reccomend printing this post if you dont have another pc connected to the net while you do it.

You'll need you win2k cd as well.

Restart your pc, after the post screen press F8 to get into the boot options menu. Choose safe mode with command prompt. It starts the pc with cmd.exe as the shell instead of explorer.exe so you can copy a new version over.

Once youre at the command prompt, insert your win2k cd. Type the drive letter of the drive its in (i'll use d:\ as an example).

Type cd\i386

Then type copy explorer.ex_ C:\windows\explorer.exe (assuming C:\ is the drive windows is installed to and windows is the directory, if its F:\winnt or whatever, type that instead). It'll ask if you want to overwrite the file, press y select yes.

You'll then have a restored explorer.exe, so reboot and see if it's working.

If it isnt, you've most likely got a virus, so make sure your av definitions are up to date and do a full system scan.

oops, i think maybe i did something wrong. IT copied the file like you said it would so i rebooted, but now explorer.exe won't start up after logon. It just sits there. Im running IE through the task manager run program thingy. So...um..help??

Ok, lets try something else.

Make sure explorer isnt running in task manager, then click new task > cmd.exe

Im assuming you have a service pack installed, so type

copy C:\WINNT\ServicePackFiles\i386\explorer.exe C:\WINNT\explorer.exe

Then in task manager, click new task again, and type explorer.exe

If that still doesnt work, and you have done a virus scan which turned up nothing, i'd reccomend re-installing.

Could it be a hard drive error.. or syptoms of a hard drive failure Atmo?

I doubt that. You would see more messing up then just one file.

Anubis is right.

I thought it strange that the copy from cd didnt work, then realised what i told you to type was the wrong thing.

"copy explorer.ex_ C:\winnt\explorer.exe"

should have been

"expand explorer.ex_ C:\winnt\explorer.exe"

Sorry about that. But copy C:\WINNT\ServicePackFiles\i386\explorer.exe C:\WINNT\explorer.exe (assuming winnt is the windows dir) should work, unless its also corrupted.

Well i had to reformat the hardrive and reinstall. Everything is back up and working now. Explorer.exe was really messed up and it was annoying so the first thing i did was reformat and install.