Frequent crashing Windows XP

[Winterjourney]

I am not computer savvy, and maybe what I am experiencing is not what you all call "crashing" but for about the past week, I am only able to go online for 1 to 2 minutes at a time and then I get a square in the middle that says "Internet Explorer has a problem and has to shut down" or something to that effect and then says to notify Microsoft.  Since I am an online student, this is making taking online exams, etc. almost impossible.  Where should I go to start troubleshooting this...again, I'm sorry if this is not what the problem is called.  I tried typing "frequent crashing" into the search and got zero results.  Thank you..I am desperate to fix this!

[Broni]

Get Firefox: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/, and see, if same thing happens.
If you can't stay connected long enough, download it from another computer, and move installation file to bad computer, through CD, or memory stick.

[ChrisXPPro]

Can't help wondering too - is this IE7 and have you got SP3 added to your system.

IE7 does have its glitches but sure should perform way longer than 2 minutes!

I'm tempted too to wonder if the "calc.exe is a browser" would perform the same!  See this thread . http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php?topic=63602.0;all

[AliphAlpha]

    Perfect Cure for " Windows Explorer has encountered an error and needs to close down "

I faced the same problem and got the cure off a site's blog page.

Go to Start/Run/and type           regsvr32 /u shmedia.dll      click OK or press enter.

if the problem still continues

go to start -> run and type         regsvr32 /u vsfilter.dll"      click OK or press enter.

Worked like a charm for me.

 

If problem still persists,  open My Computer, right click in the window, select any view type apart from Thumbnails.

Now click Tools select Folder Options and in View tab click on Apply to all folders .

Generally setting view mode any other than thumbnail should sort out the problem.