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Can't load explorer.exe.

A friend of mine had a computer go down and needed the info off the hard drive so he tried installing it as a slave in another computer. That would not take so he installed it as the master and the other one as the slave and it worked. He got all the info off that he needed but now when he went to put his back in as a master it says something like can't load explorer.exe. You must reinstall windows. Why would this happen?

ingeborgdot@yah
Posting Pro in Training
465 posts since Dec 2004
Reputation Points: 11
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Did he directly copy over everything including the Windows directory? If so, he would have messed up his install. He'll have to do a repair install of the operating system to fix it.

For future reference, his computer most likely didn't load when he added the other drive because he didn't set the master/slave jumper settings on the drives correctly.

chrisbliss18
Posting Shark
917 posts since Aug 2005
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No, all he copied was address book, pictures and I think some emails and documents.

ingeborgdot@yah
Posting Pro in Training
465 posts since Dec 2004
Reputation Points: 11
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check the system.ini file (C:\Windows\system.ini). Scroll till you find a line that starts with 'Shell='. Make sure it reads as 'Shell=explorer.exe'. Save the file and reboot. You'll need to do this from a DOS window (obviously). Once you get to a DOS Prompt, type the following commands.

C:
cd \
cd windows
cd command
edit C:\Windows\System.ini

Change the line to read as shell=explorer.exe
Save the file and restart the computer. If this doesn't help, post back here.

goldeagle2005
Finkus Stinkalotus
Team Colleague
1,500 posts since Jun 2005
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it is long time i seen this problem with many users.
Most likley user profile is corrupt. After through task manager running explorer.exe,if u can create user or login as adminstartor and and copy from admin desktop to user desktop.
logout and login with administrator again and restart computer and login as user this time. it will work.
thanks,
Raydar

Raydar
Newbie Poster
1 post since Dec 2007
Reputation Points: 10
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Plz stop rushing here n there,, the problem can be easily solve with this simple step
Get a virus free Flash drive ,,open my Computer on another Pc of the same versions of window....open the local disk c:,then open windows folder look for explorer.exe copy it to flash...then go to the problem Computer..just open the flash drive there thru taskmanager by pressing ctrl+shift+Esc or Alt+ctrl+del goto new task from browse u can access the flash drive ..then u now copy the explorer back to the windows directory.....u can as well launch it there....good luck.

or
if u can open the task manager...just open the new task dialogue or the run dialogue box
Place your Windows Installation CD in the CD Drive and type this in the "Run" Windows: "sfc /scannow" without quotes. thast will fix all the damaged files in your system without lossing any data.

justonetruelove
Newbie Poster
1 post since Nov 2010
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This question has already been solved

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