Member Avatar for Omni

Not so recently, my mothers Sony Laptop (among being riddled with other countless flaws and errors) Internet Explorer refuses to open up or run.

An error box pops up with the following text message every time

Explorer has caused in error in SHELLEXT.DLL
Explorer will now close.

Now I figured Internet Explorer was corrupt and I attempted to reinstall the application, the only problem is the Microsoft windows download website doesn’t actually have a legitimate, fresh and full copy installation of Internet Explorer. I searched and wadded through 219 potential downloads for Explorer finding every single one to simply be an update of the recent Explorer 6 or older Explorer 5

So I tried the updates anyways, after uninstalling and reconfiguring the internet explorer 6 on the laptop back to explorer 5. The only problem now is that I receive an error message which simply states that not all components were installed correctly (and this is after the percentage bar hits like, 1...) so obviously that didn’t solve anything.

So I decided to find and use the ME operating disc (that’s the OS of the laptop btw) to reinstall explorer hoping that in the disc itself there would be an installation of explorer. The only **** part is that my mother told me when she bought the laptop from STAPLES, they didn’t include an OS disc, which I found odd because by law they are suppose to (and I’m sure you can’t create a recovery disc on an ME system)

So now I’m totally out of luck and I don’t know what to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

-Model-
Manufacture: Sony Electronics
Specs:Pentium III, 62 DDR RAM
OS: Windows ME 4.90.3000
Previously installed aps (In order): BPS Spyware Remover
Ad-aware 6.0
D-Link Airplus, wireless card (which we never got working properly, we use the conventional ethernet port to connect to SHAW)
Anytime Organizer

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Dani AI

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A quick diagnosis: the error naming SHELLEXT.DLL normally points to a broken shell extension — an in‑process COM DLL Explorer loads to add things like context‑menu items, icon handlers or property sheets — not to Internet Explorer itself. That explains why reinstalling IE (as tried and as suggested) often has no effect: Explorer is crashing inside the shell‑extension host. Microsoft: Creating Shell Extension Handlers. (learn.microsoft.com)

Non‑destructive triage (fastest, safest path): boot into Safe Mode (F8 at startup). If the error disappears, third‑party shell extensions are almost certainly involved. Use ShellExView to hide Microsoft extensions and disable all remaining (third‑party) entries, then restart Explorer and test; re‑enable items one group at a time to find the offender. As an alternative, Autoruns shows Explorer‑loaded handlers under the Explorer tab and can be used to uncheck suspicious entries. (nirsoft.net)

If a particular DLL is identified but cannot be removed normally, unregister and isolate it from a command prompt (back up first). Example commands (run from Safe Mode or recovery DOS prompt):

scanreg.exe /restore

regsvr32 /u "C:\full\path\to\SHELLEXT.DLL"
ren "C:\full\path\to\SHELLEXT.DLL" "SHELLEXT.DLL.bak"

Use scanreg /restore or System Restore to roll the system back if registry corruption or a recent install caused the problem. Restore and registry‑backup facilities exist in Windows Me (System Restore / Registry Checker). (support.microsoft.com)

Notes and cautions: always back up personal files and export registry keys before editing. Disabling the offending extension is safer than deleting files; once isolated, uninstall the app that installed the extension so the problem does not recur. If Safe Mode and the above tools cannot resolve the crash, vendor recovery media or an OEM recovery partition are the usual next step.

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Member Avatar for caperjack

Follow these instructions and you can download the full IE ,and burn it to cd .

Member Avatar for Omni

Unfortunately, this did not work =T

Completely reinstalling the internet explorer package didnt seem to have any effect. What else can I do?

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