crash-any hope?

[xbanana]

Months and months ago, my boyfriend's computer started getting tons of pop-ups (no doubt from visits to questionable sites, but that's another issue). I downloaded the Lavasoft AdaWare and would periodically run that. there were two problems there:

1. the problems tended to suggest that there were problems with the registry-and I don't know how to clean it, was afraid to touch it.

2. The delete function would freeze once the scan was run, and their support site suggested going in in safe mode, running the scan, deleting one family restarting the computer and repeating. That worked, but was very time consuming and never really solved the problem, just made everything better for a while.

So I foolishly started uninstalling programs that I knew weren't supposed to be there (People on Page, 1-800 Search Assistant, Webex-I think were some of them). and again, things would be fine for a while. Well, the last time I did it (and I cannot remember the name of the program) I hit uninstall on one of the programs and everything disappeared. I hit CTRL ALT DEL and nothing. All of the programs had disappeared. I shut it off, started the computer again and the scandisk ran, it went through the usual opening windows stuff and the wallpaper came up, but no icons and no task bar. Nothing!

When I would try to press a button, this error message comes up:

Explorer
This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down....yada yada yada. Under details it says:

Explorer caused an invalid page fault in module Explorer.exe at 015:00401f31
Registers:
EAX: 00000000  CS= 015f
EIP=00401f31  eflgs=00010246
EXB=00000001  SS=0167
ESP=0080ff1c
EBP= 0080ff24
ECX=c181eaa0  DS= 0167
ESI=00000000  FS= 1c5f
EXD=0080ff2c  ES=0167
EDI= 00000000  GS=0000

Bytes at CS:EIP
8b 08 50 ff 11 8b 45 08
50 8b 08 ff 51 08 8b 45

Stack Dump:
00401ee0 0080ff2c 0080ff64 0040fcac 00000000
00000000 00000000 00000001 00404436 0059fc30
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 0000ffff
65f21fcb

Now when I go into DOS and enter c:\win, I get this response, "HIMEM.SYS is missing. Make sure this file is in your directory"

A friend of my boyfriend built this computer for him and all he has is a floppy disk that says win98 startup. It has a help file, but I am in over my head.

Sorry this is so longwinded. Any thoughts arre appreciated. Thanks!

x

[yourfateissealed]

Adaware blows...

Try Microsoft's AntiSpyware.

Yes...There is hope, by the way

[Mac]

Not a lot by the look of it.

Or is there ComputerHope ?

[Mac]

Maybe his friend will re-install the system for him on a freshly partitioned and formatted drive and then ... make a drive image ... so that he can restore the computer easily. (?)

If you need to retrieve important data and there is a CD-Burner try KNOPPIX and use its burning program K3B.

[christine]

we seem to have the same error message. although mine began when i loaded a program from people p c. your program states that hemi is missing our program states that it is loading, yet we still have a blank red screen and no desktop icons. and yes our screensaver works. did you have any luck fixing the problem? help me if you did,,,pleeeeeeeeeease??

[GX1_Man]

The lessons are:

Be careful where you visit
Be even more careful of what you download.
Don't click on things on the Internet that say "Click Here"
Keep an active spyware/adware/antivrus solution in place
Back up important data files

[xbanana]

Well, the friend who put the computer together is no longer around.  

Can you think of any DOS commands I could try to get this up an running? I am not too familiar with DOS.

I am assuming the only way I could reinstall windows 98 is with a CD-Rom (all he has is a floppy).

Thanks!  

[Mac]

Invalid Page Fault in Module Explorer.exe

In this article it tells you how to extract the files from a '98 CD-ROM

"RESOLUTION
To resolve this issue, extract new copies of the original Windows files from your Windows CD. To do this, follow these steps:
1.      Start the computer with CD-ROM support using a Windows 98 Startup Disk.      
2.      Insert your Windows Compact Disk (CD) into the CD or DVD-ROM drive.      
3.      Type drive: where drive is the drive letter of the CD or DVD-ROM drive, and then press ENTER. For example, D:.

NOTE: If you have an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) installation of Windows, your Windows installation files may be located on the hard disk in the following location: C:\Windows\Options\Cabs (If so, go to 7 below.)

4.      Type cd\win98, and then press ENTER.      
5.      Type the following command and then press ENTER:
extract /a /y /e /l c:\windows\system base4.cab Shdocvw.dll Mshtml.dll Comctl32.dll Shlwapi.dll Shell32.dll
6.      Type the following command and then press ENTER:
extract /a /y /e /l c:\windows base4.cab explorer.exe"

7. Just take a look at these two lines which contain the relevant data...

extract /a /y /e /l c:\windows\system base4.cab Shdocvw.dll Mshtml.dll Comctl32.dll Shlwapi.dll Shell32.dll

The above line is extracting the 5 files from the base4.cab file on the CD and putting them in the c:\windows\system folder.

extract /a /y /e /l c:\windows base4.cab explorer.exe

The above line is extracting only explorer.exe from the base4.cab folder on the CD and putting it into the c:\windows folder.

If you know where they are, in the C:\Windows\Options\Cabs folder (on the hard-drive) and know where to put them, from the above, it can make life a little easier...

From the bootdisk A:\>prompt type:

extract c:\windows\options\cabs\base4.cab shdocvw.dll /l c:\windows\system

extract c:\windows\options\cabs\base4.cab mshtml.dll /l c:\windows\system

extract c:\windows\options\cabs\base4.cab comctl32.dll /l c:\windows\system

extract c:\windows\options\cabs\base4.cab shlwapi.dll /l c:\windows\system

extract c:\windows\options\cabs\base4.cab shell32.dll /l c:\windows\system

...and

extract c:\windows\options\cabs\base4.cab explorer.exe /l c:\windows

Is that good enough?

[merlin_2]

load the floppy disk........at the  a:\ prompt ...type  fix/mbr......or scanreg/fix.........as a workaround fix.....