Well at least a few times a day I get the error message while surfing online: You have performed and illegal operation and this program must be shut down. Then I have no choice but to exit my ISP, reload it and re-dialup. Any possible solutions to thwart this from happening frequently, It’s happened to me six times today.
Don’t use windows. That is the only known cure.
The problem is old .dll files that get loaded with programs you add. With me it was “enhanced font viewers” that caused the trouble one time, and “right-click option enhancers” another time.
What you have to do is find all the .dll files that your browser uses that may have older “evil twins” in another program. Find the one with the latest date and copy it to the most generic system folder, usually \windows or \winnt and archive the older copies in temp folder until you’re sure everything is working.
This is tedious, and some tools have been developed to help you.
Try searching http://winfiles.com for utilities to track them down.
Good luck.
What browser are you using Silo? When that happens to me with Netscape 4.7, I just use IE instead. Got both of them loaded.
BUT, we need more infor to be able to tell you what is causing it and how to fix it.
Usually, it is caused by two programs trying to use the same memory address, to put it in simple terms. Next time you get one of those messages, there should be a “Details” button. Click that and record the first line that you see and report it back. Information about the two conflicting programs/files will be in the first line of the details and this is valuable in determining what went wrong.
Anybody know why Billy-Boy chose such an odd thing to say for the error message?
‘Illegal?’ Talk about an over-inflated sense of self-importance …
“Illegal” is standard IBM mainframe.
Probably goes back to punch card days, when IBM was 100% white shirt, blue suit, spitshine, do not spindle or mutilate- all problems are caused by ignorant users, not the giant mechanical brain.
Its a lot better than that one on the Mac, isnt it? Which has Some guru notice 
It is “illegal” in the sense that it breaks the (software) rules. Also not that it says “this program has performed an illegal operation” and not “YOU have performed an illegal operation”.
Silo,
Are you using AOL then launching IE or are you using AOL’s butchered IE?
In either case I recommend that you reinstall AOL. You can reinstall it to a different location so you don’t loose email and such on your current install.
It will hopefully replace/overwrite files that are corrupt – like someone said usually a DLL file.
If it was a DLL, you could check those using the SYSTEM FILE CHECKER first, start:run:SFC.exe
is this W98?