Explorer illegal operation

[nh39]

Hello,

It's a win 98 SE computer, which had been working fine, and now, "nobody" knows why all of a sudden it got an error message saying:

"Explorer
This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down..."

When we clicked Close the screen remained blank, no icons or taskbar showed up. Pressed ctrl-alt-del and there was no program running. I tried to restore the registry from a previous day, fix the registry, and delete the *.pwl files but still can't get anything. We tried to go to the safemode but pressing F5 or F8 didn't have any effect. We can only boot from a floppy.

Please help! Any info or suggestion is greatly appreciated.

 

[carrr]

Need more info than the generic message. What does the details screen say?

 

[zoeythecat]

Possibility the Temp files have built up. Also possibility of a virus. I would try to delete the temp files from the c:\windows\temp directory first to see if this improves. If it doesn't make sure you have an up to date virus program with the latest virus definition files and run a virus check.
(To delete the Temp Files)
(1)Do a search for *.tmp and directory name = c:\windows\temp
(2) Delete all *.tmp files from c:\windows\temp

(Run Scan Disk)
* Try running a scan disk to see if any errors are encountered on the disk
(Run Disk Defragmenter)
* Defragment your disk (This sometimes can take several hours depending on how fragmented the disk is.

 

[nh39]

First of all, I figured how to get to safe mode on this computer: SHIFT. There's no problem with the safe mode.

Hi zoeythecat, thanks for your help. I've tried all of your suggestions but still can't fix it yet.

Hi carr, here's what in the details window:

EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in module KERNEL32.DLL at 0167:bffb400b.
Registers:
EAX=00d06ce9 CS=0167 EIP=bffb400b EFLGS=00010202
EBX=000002a0 SS=016f ESP=00c0f928 EBP=00c0fbc0
ECX=00000010 DS=016f ESI=bff224fe FS=228f
ECX=004047e9 ES=016f EDI=00000c16 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
00 66 a1 d4 fc bf c3 a1 97 fc bf c3 c7 05
Stack dump:
004047f9 000002a0 00000000 000002a4 00000154
00000001 00000012 00000012 00000016 00000016
fffffff1 00000000 00000000 00000000 000002bc
00000000

Thanks a million guys.

 

[carrr]

Check this out. Run through the two fixes listed here and post back if no joy...

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=187965

 

[carrr]

Also, run repair on your Internet Explorer for good measure. Go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, select IE and start to remove it...Repair will be one of the options offered to you.

 

[mattjurado]

Also, boot to dos, delete c:\windows\win386.swp. Windows will rebuild the file on next bootup, could be corrupt swap file.

Matt J.

 

[WeeGeordie]

Check for video driver updates.

 

[CSCWheels]

Clean up your resources as well.
To see how much is being used, right click on my computer, choose properties and then performance. The system resources should be no less than 70%. If the resources are below that then you need to do the following to clean them up.
Start/run/msconfig
Click on the startup items tab.

Now, for guidence as to what disable, download this list before begining the process.

http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.htm

Once you have completed the task, reboot the computer and try surfing again.

 

[Naanu]

These issues are usually associated with the virtual memory of the computer. This could occur if Windows is unable to allocate memory for the application that generated the error message. also, this can occur due to incorrect swap file settings.

Perform the below steps to resolve the issue:

1. Go to Start/Run, type MSCONFIG and click Ok. Under startup tab, uncheck all unnecessary items. Click Apply and then Ok. Restart the computer.

2. Right click My computer and choose Properties. Under Properties, get in to Performance. Choose the option where you could enter the swap file size. Ensure that you enter a value 2 and a half times of the RAM installed on the computer as the minimum value and as the maximum value. Click Ok and Ok and restart the computer when prompted. Your computer shud be in a better shape now!!!

Regards,

Karthik Makam
Bangalore
India