So I was cleaning up my brother’s computer, throwing away alot of the stuff he didn’t need and when I restarted my computer, it gives me an explorer error when I start up my computer and won’t even let me open any other applications. It says ‘to contact PROGRAM VENDOR’ but I have no idea how to fix it.
I would like to just start from scratch (erase everything and start from what the computer was when he first got it but unfortunately, he lost the recovery disks so I can’t do anything!!
oh, my computer is a windows 98, 10gigs, 128mb, using a ie6 and if you need any other specs, I’ll reply fast!
I’m really having an internet withdrawl right now for since moving back from college, I haven’t been away from the net for this long!! thanks for your help in advance!!
I had this problem, though not with IE. Call the manufacturer and ask for the recovery disks. Since you paid the Windows license fee on purchase, you “own” a copy of the OS. I could explain the problem in detail, but you have a call to make. Ask me to expound if needed.
What you’re telling me is that the ONLY way I could fix it is to have the recovery disks? Is there a way where I could (without the recovery disks) to reset my computer to its original form (like new…sorta) I’m just asking because I HATE dealing with those gateway folks and then waiting in agony for the disks to arrive.
Would appreciate it if you explained in detail for I want to know whe the hell happened and would like to learn about it more. Thanks for your help!
It sounds like you’ve managed to damage Explorer. We’re not talking about Internet Explorer, here, but about explorer.exe, the program that Windows needs to have running in order to do much of anything at all.
The reason you can’t magicially “reset” the computer to its original form is that a home PC, unlike the computer on the Starship Enterprise, doesn’t have some sort of protected archival storage of its software. If you delete the wrong things, they’re gone. They can only be recovered from the distribution CD, and if you don’t have that CD, you’re screwed.
The pcs that I’ve bought in the past couple years have that feature. They don’t come with distribution disks. Instead, you can reset to the factory conditions by rebooting and holding down a function key. Of course, it is still possible to damage this function, but not nearly as likely. Older versions of the usoft software have the cabs (search for it) which also allow you to run a re-setup for the operating system only.
Check to see if the computer has a system rollback feature. Windows XP has this built in (System Restore). Windows 98 did not have this built in, but my Acer computer had it’s own rollback feature called “TimeMachine” which I successfully used to rollback the computer to a prior date when it was working properly.
You can try restoring an earlier version of your computers Registry.
Boot the computer in DOS mode and at the prompt, type ‘SCANREG /RESTORE’ The computer will show you a list of the last five ‘good’ registrys that were saved after a successful boot. Pick a registry that pre-dates your problems and restore it. Then re-boot normally.
Interesting, RM Mentock and rsa! I hadn’t seen that feature on a PC before, and certainly not on a Win98 machine. Maybe reoch will get lucky.
NutWrench, was the routine for grabbing older registries available in Win98? (I haven’t fiddled with Win98 in a long time.) Of course, if poor reoch has deleted some essential system files, restoring an older, healthier registry won’t cure the problem, but it’s certainly worth a shot before surrendering.
Yes, that’s worked for me on several occasions where the Windows desktop got hosed.
Some OEM versions of Windows 98 will also let you re-install the OS without having to reformat the entire drive. Just go to the Windows/Options/CABS directory and run the Setup program from there. This will JUST reinstall Windows: there’s no hard drive formatting involved.
Thanks for all your help! I’ve written down everything and I can’t wait to go home and try it out…hopefully it works…I can’t live any longer without my internet!! Thank you so much guys…I don’t know what I would do without this webpage!!