Shoutbox

Hi there.

Yesterday, I left my father's laptop for a while and the computer automatically hibernated. When I got back, I pressed the "On" button to wake the computer up.. Everything started up just fine. I open Internet Explorer and everything got slow.. IE went "Not Responding", Ctrl + Alt + Del did nothing, it was absolutely locked up. So, as it had no battery on and was plugged in to the charger, working on AC power, I pulled the plug from the laptop and it shutdown..

The laptop is on XP btw.

Plugged it back in and booted.. Bootscreen, the normal drill and then it reached that part where it checks for problems after a faulty shutdown.. It took quite a while to get past that part. It mentioned a file to have problems (shell32.dll) and that it had been fixed. Eventually it ended the process and I logged in. Now everytime I open 'My Computer' and double-click one of the drives or w/e, Explorer.exe crashes. What could be wrong?

I tried sending the error report to Microsoft but the displayed page said they were still "looking for an answer" or something like that. I had a look at the error report and it did mention shell32.dll.. Am I screwed or what? I'm not around the laptop right now but I'll post a screenshot of the error details tomorrow.

The computer is fine (I'm yet to see any other symptoms), I can access all drives by going to 'Execute' and typing the path.. Really don't know what's wrong :\

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

System Restore?

I actually have the same damn problem with a drive at work, we still haven't found a fix either..

err, repair the installation

The best wya to fix issue without losing anything:

Get Windows 98 with NTFS support (LIVE) and replace the damaged file with a working one. You can get this live os from Hiren's Boot CD (and also might come handy later).

I'm uploading a working DLL so you can replace it on your computer.

EDIT: Here's the [ Link ]

quote:

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Originally posted by SonicSam

System Restore ?

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Did that, it was useless.. Thanks though.

quote:

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Originally posted by ShawnZ
err, repair the installation

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I haven't got a Windows CD for that PC, I have one of those Toshiba Instalation CD, I'm not sure if they feature reparation. But I'll take a look, thanks.

quote:

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Originally posted by YottabyteWIzard

The best wya to fix issue without losing anything:

Get Windows 98 with NTFS support (LIVE) and replace the damaged file with a working one. You can get this live os from Hiren's Boot CD (and also might come handy later).

I'm uploading a working DLL so you can replace it on your computer.

EDIT: Here's the [ Link ]

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I think that's not an option lol, what if I screw something up..

shell32.dll holds all the images/icons for windows explorer.

quote:

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Originally posted by Bilbo
shell32.dll holds all the images/icons for windows explorer.

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It does a lot more than that... There are loads of functions contained in there that windows will need to use for all it's file operations etc.

Woops, just booted and it works just fine... WTF? lol I tried rebooting several times and it didn't improve, now this? Odd.

Thanks everybody anyhow..

quote:

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Originally posted by Jhrono
I haven't got a Windows CD for that PC, I have one of those Toshiba Instalation CD, I'm not sure if they feature reparation. But I'll take a look, thanks.

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For future reference it does . I had to do it myself .