IE6 & FF3 simply won't start

[isaacgrover]

Good evening from Wisconsin,

My office manager's personal laptop was infected with Vundo, which I used VundoFix to remove and MalwareBytes Anti-Malware and AVG Free to ensure the system was clean of spyware and viruses, respectively. This system is running Windows XP MCE 2005 w/SP3.

Now Internet Exporer 6 and Firefox 3 won't start at all. There aren't any errors displayed and no signs of a crash. Both applications have been uninstalled, the system rebooted, and then reinstalled, all in vain.

I even completed a repair install, which didn't fix the problem either.

Does anyone here have any ideas of what I can look at to do further troubleshooting, or better yet fix it?

Thank you in advance,


--
Isaac Grover, Owner
Quality Computer Services of River Falls, Wisconsin
Web:

http://www.qcs-rf.com

 

[linney]

If you create a new user can he then start and run these programs?

Will either program run from "Safe Mode with Networking"?

Have you tried clicking on the actual .exe rather than any shortcuts? Will either program allow you to rename their .exe file to anything else and then run under that new name?

You can have a look at this if you feel like clutching at straws, personally I'm thinking of a clean install after a format?

Internet Explorer Fix

http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/IEFIX.htm

 

[goombawaho]

Have you done a SFC /scannow to see that all system files are in order??

 

[isaacgrover]

As a followup to my original post for my particular solution, I had done goombawaho's suggestion of sfc /scannow and even a repair install, which didn't repair either browser.

Linney's suggestion of IEFIX worked for me, but didn't fix Firefox. So I found another post on another forum that suggested wiping out the remaining Firefox profile through Windows Explorer after uninstalling Firefox, after which I was able to reinstall Firefox and now it works as it should.

Best of all, no clean install of Windows XP was necessary.

Thank you all for the suggestions.


--
Isaac Grover, Owner
Quality Computer Services of River Falls, Wisconsin
Web:

http://www.qcs-rf.com

 

[linney]

I guess that is why it is called "IE FIX", too bad it only works on IE6.

Have you ever tried IE7, IE8 is just about ready to be released too?