explorer.exe won't start

[seedubya]

When I log in I get
"The application has failed to start because □.dll was not found."

Yes, you are reading that correctly and that is a square.

Anyone have any idea how to go about discovering what or where □.dll or how to unhook it from explorer.exe

 

[CDavis]

See if you can press Crtl-Alt-Del and bring up Task Manager. Then launch explorer.exe via the New Task option. If that works, then you should be able to clean up whatever has it's hooks in explorer. I just dealt with this issue twice in the last couple of weeks.

 

[seedubya]

Already tried that, thanks. It just crashes again with the same error. I can start any exe I like EXCEPT explorer from the task manager. Just running sfc now to see if that will work.

 

[seedubya]

I was going to recommend sfc. Let us know. Did you also scan for malware and the like?

No, not yet; simply because I can't see ANY evidence of malware, not to mention that this system doesn't connect to the net, just runs a job management software. I'm starting to suspect a hard drive problem. The square symbol is usually Windese for "I can't read that character". If something on the hdd became corrupt it could possibly cause this error - at least I think so.

 

[CDavis]

Have you tried running a cleaner program(malwarebytes) via the New Task option in task manager?

 

[TimeCode]

Can you find the explorer.exe file through the command prompt and possibly run it that way? c:\windows\explorer.exe

 

[seedubya]

@Tim - no difference. SFC didn't help either. Repair install here I come.....

 

[AgentTech]

Had same issue the other day

I opened a command prompt from File > Run in task manager and ran system restore from there - %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe. It seemed to do the trick.

I'm sure you tried 'Last known Good Conf' as well. It didn't work for me though.

 

[seedubya]

@AgentTech - hadn't tried that, thanks for thinking of it. Unfortunately, no joy, nor with LKGC either.

 

[LunchBox]

I definetly think is a virus. In the past with weird stuff like that I would replace it through the command console. Expanding the cab folder and replacing the bad one.

Does the problem happen to anyone who logs in?

I also came across this link

http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Windows/XP/Q_23731739.html

 

[seedubya]

Not virus related. Machine's not on the net - it has no infection vector. It just stopped working.

 

[FooseSB]

I didn't see you mention it, but you might want to run a CHKDSK repair before trying the repair installation.

 

[JRDtechnet]

launch taskmgr, file>run autoruns export the log file and post it here. Also what is under the "Image Hijack" tab?

 

[seedubya]

This is solved. Repair install in the end.