Weird Windows Issue

[Svip]

Well, as you might have guessed, it is not my computer, it is one of my class mates'. And the issue is confusing me, I have learned a bit about trouble shooting Windows machines, despite I do not normally like to do it, cause I just go into my own world thinking of / paths and command lines, and regret I even said yes to fix it.

 

Anyways, her computer is her family's computer, meaning that there are at least four users. However, when she logs into her own, she gets a message saying; "EXPLORE.EXE has crashed, woo!" And then she can choose to send a report or whatever.

 

Anyways, after the error, the taskbar is locked and it does not live up again, the desktop does not show up any icons at all. Not only that, another error appears saying something is wrong with an "dwin32t.exe"-file ( the name might be wrong ( it probably is ) ) and then nothing happens.

 

Only MSN as one of the start up applications manage to stay alive. However, it is possible to start new applications, by clicky Ctrl+Alt+Del select "New Job" and entering a path or command ( e.g. 'msconfig' ).

 

I was confused, cause I had never seen such an error before, the weird part was that it was a bit random if it happened, and sometimes it happened on the other users as well, and sometimes not.

 

I then got Avast! to check her system, it only found four files, which was deleted. Luckily her old user ( she had created a new one, since the problem happend some months ago, where they had a techincal support over to fix it ) now worked, but her current still remained in it's peril.

 

I am lost of ideas, I do not know what specs the computer came with, other than it runs Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition.

 

But as usual, one of the reasons I hug my Linux box at night.

[Bond996]

EXPLORE.EXE is defintly not correct. It should be explorer.exe. Try to get into safe mode and run spyware scans.

 

And there are 4 users? Two of them are her, but only one of them works?

[Svip]

EXPLORE.EXE is defintly not correct. It should be explorer.exe. Try to get into safe mode and run spyware scans.

 

And there are 4 users? Two of them are her, but only one of them works?

Well, whatever, Windows file names are crazy anyways.

 

Four users as in humans, there are six users on the computer, one for each person plus an extra for her, and then of course, the administrator ( which weirdly enough does not have a password ).

 

I did try spyware scans and virus scans, but both of them found close to null. I was astonished, I would have assumed a ton of stuff ( at least ).

 

There couldn't be another way to fix the issue? ( the best way is always to format the whole system, and go on again, but I don't like an OS you'll have to do that before it works correctly )

[Xyzar]

<!-- i've had explorer.exe crashing a few times but usually, it would only make the taskbar and all icons and sh*t dissapear, but if would always 'fix itself', restart and the taskbar &stuff woudl reappear.

 

a few times it would stay f*cked, and give me more errors. but a reboot always fixed it

 

i would guess some of Windows' files are damaged/corrupt

 

you could try replacing explorer.exe with working one from a (clean) install of windows -->

[SyphonPayne]

you could try doing a repair with the windows disc.

[Wolf68k]

HJT log? It might reveal sometning the others have missed.

 

Knowing the name of the dwin32t.exe correct name might help as well

[Svip]

<!-- i've had explorer.exe crashing a few times but usually, it would only make the taskbar and all icons and sh*t dissapear, but if would always 'fix itself', restart and the taskbar &stuff woudl reappear.

 

a few times it would stay f*cked, and give me more errors. but a reboot always fixed it

 

i would guess some of Windows' files are damaged/corrupt

 

you could try replacing explorer.exe with working one from a (clean) install of windows -->

Then how do you explain that the explorer.exe file works fine on the four other users?

 

SyphonPayne: Would be an end solution.

 

Wolf68k: It's a friend of mine, and thus I do not have access, I might be able to get to it later and do the HiJackThis log on here.

[Twistie]

Explorer.exe crashes all the time on my computer but I've never had it crash on startup. I only ever happens after closing high memory usage programs... and my ftp program (which is a little weird). It doesn't happen every time but it happens about 40% of the time. I am able to resolve it by logging off and back on again. I have also induced an explorer.exe crash on my schools systems when the computer has frozen while loading network folders. They have also been fixed by logging on and off. Yet, the problem here is that you can't log on without it crashing. Try starting in safe mode and setting all the graphical stuff to use minimum resources. If that doesn't work the best alternative is creating a new account, transferring all her files and settings and deleteing the old account!