It happened a couple of days ago. I could go into my Hotmail account, but I couldn’t view or delete my email. I assume it is because I still have a somewhat older web browser. So I try to download Internet Explorer 8. Everything seems to be going alright in the download. Then I get a message saying it is extracting some files. Again, I have no reason to suspect anything is going wrong at this point. Then I get an error message saying “Entry Point Not Found”.
Now believe me, I have better things to do than bother people on these boards with mundane questions they already heard before. And indeed, I did call the Internet Explorer 8 help line, which by the way, unlike these boards, isn’t free. I got a lovely man with a really thick Indian accent. I couldn’t understand him, he couldn’t understand me. Finally I told him I’d call back Monday, and he let me go. As I said, the call apparently wasn’t free. So we will probably get a $20 bill now (it took a long time to even get to first base with this guy after all:)).
Anyways, if it isn’t apparent in my text, I am still very upset now:). I did glance at the sticky at the top of these threads that said if you have a technical problem, go here first. But I don’t think anything there applied to me (as I’ve said, I just glanced at it). But if I missed something, kindly supply me a link.
As I’ve said, to repeat, I want to download Internet Explorer 8 and keep getting an error message that “Entry Point Not Found”. I also am not familiar too much with Internet Explorer 8. So if any of you have any further advice to give on the matter, I am open to it:). And please give replies in simple-to-understand English. And don’t ask me a technical question, I will probably make an ass out of myself trying to answer it.
BTW, as I’ve said, I have been having problems with Hotmail now too. If any of you know what that is all about too, I am all ears:).
And as always, thank you in advance to all who reply:)
If you insist on actually getting IE to work, hmm… have you tried updating all the essential updates on Windows Update? A cursory Google search for “entry point not found” said that it might have something to do with improperly installed service packs, but I don’t know for sure. There aren’t actually very many results for that error (this thread was #4 on Google and the others are mostly repeats). Was there a longer error message, and if so, what did it say aside from “Entry Point Not Found”?
Thank you for your reply. FWIW, here is the site I was working with. FYI, the complete message was “The procedure entry point SHRegGetValueW could not be located in the dynamic link library SHLWAPI.dll.S”. I don’t know what that means, so I didn’t included. Yes, I am familiar with FireFox and may have to get it if I have no choice. But I prefer IE. I after all have been using it right from the start. I also have their toolbar, after all. Anyways, I still don’t know what the problem is. So I will open the floor to more advice, from you and others:).
Jim, try Firefox. Install the add-on AdBlock Plus. You won’t believe how much better your browsing experience will be. If, after all, you don’t like it, you can uninstall it and go back to troubleshooting IE8.
i’m a huge FF fan and user, but to be quite honest if you’ve used both and your preference is still IE, IE8 is a pretty decent browser (as far as IE browsers go).
According to this page, your error might be caused by not having a recent service pack for Windows XP (as was already mentioned by Reply). Go to this Microsoft page and download Windows XP Service Pack 3. Then try to install IE8 again.
Back up you hard drive before installing Service Pack 3. The installation can be quite difficult (it gave me a lot more trouble than any IE upgrade ever did). One tip I can give you is to turn off as many of the programs that you have running in the background as you possibly can, including stuff like ant-virus programs, before you start to install the upgrade.
Nevertheless, if you want your computer to be secure (and especially if you insist on using IE), you should do it.
Incidentally, it seems rather unlikely to me that your original problems with Hotmail were anything to do with having an older browser version. My guess would be that it was a glitch on the Hotmail server.
Well, the Hotmail problem has resolved itself. But I lost a couple of my toolbars (yes, I had more than one). Another question (as long as I’m at it): when I tried to install IE8, it pulled out other programs according to the box. Could this be the cause of the problems I am having now (I have a hard time loading pages now too)? I did a system restore. But this hasn’t changed things too much at least.
I am having a similar problem, but not with IE7 (though it too isn’t working right now), but it’s also not allowing me to log onto AIM, and I get that error message up there about the SHLWAPI.dll.S . And Youtube videos and twitter accounts seemed to be blocked for me (pretty much any small popup thing in Firefox. And it’s not because of an adblocker…
There’s a forum specifically for microsoft problems. It’s on a website, but it’s much easier to read as a newsgroup. In your email reader, go to Tools/Accounts and add it to the newsgroup section. Add msnews.microsoft.com and you can explore that for as many of those subgroups you wish.
On the Tools menu in OE, click Accounts. In the Internet Account dialog box, click the Add button, and then click News. In the Internet Connection Wizard that appears, type your name in the Display name field (but do not use your real name - spammers go through these regularly - use something like “nobody”). Then click Next. Type your email address in the email address field, but don’t use your real email address, or use it but add something like “nospam” at the end). Then click Next. Type msnews.microsoft.com in the News (NNTP) Server field. Click Next. Click Finish. Then click Close. When asked if you want to download newsgroups from the news server, click Yes. In the Newsgroup Subscription dialog box, type "microsoft.public.windowsvista to display all Windows Vista newsgroups (or XP, if you have XP). You will want to download internet explorer 8.
I forgot to mention that several experts in microsoft are constantly reading the questions and have very good answers, unlike many similar websites which give you bogus advice. Some of them actually work for Microsoft and Microsoft employees are constantly viewing these newsgroups for constructive criticisms.
:eek: Why on earth would anyone prefer that user-unfriendly, bloated, ad-filled piece of crap over a sleek, fast, ad-free browser like FF?