I'm hoping the good folk who seem so knowledgeable here might be able to help.
PC. The dreaded Vista (Home Premium), 64-bit. Had it quite a few years, as you might guess. Pretty much without issues, strangely.
Yesterday IE won't start. Nothing, no response, neither 32-bit nor 64-bit version. Last time used: maybe a month ago. Skype presents a blank panel instead of the proper log-in - I believe the two issues are related, from what I've read.
I've tried everything that seems sensible from Google searches, including trying to remove IE (not sure that worked), re-installing it, running a Malwarebytes scan (nothing detected).
Cannot disable/re-enable it from the Control Panel, as it doesn't show under "Turn Windows features on or off".
The only Restore Point I had was from a few days back - tried it anyway, but no luck.
I am up to date with all Windows updates - always am, likewise with anti-virus (Avast).
Don't tell me to reinstall Vista - I don't have a disk.
Another odd thing - possibly related: if I click the Start button and try to do a search from there it doesn't work and I get the message "search: query... Catastrophic failure".
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Doesn't sound so good really, but try starting IE in Safe Mode:
In the Run box type cmd then press enter
In the black box type
cd c:program files then press enter
cd internet explorer then press enter
iexplore -extoff then press enter
This should start IE without any add ons. Let us know how you get on...
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Thanks, Smokie.
After typing "cd c:program files" in the black box and pressing Enter I get "The system cannot find the path specified".
I take it this is bad news.
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No, not bad news, there is a backslash missing.
But i don't think that's the issue Do you have any other internet browser?
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Done as suggested, including backslash.
Nothing happens.
"Do you have any other internet browser?"
Yes, Opera.
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>> After typing "cd c:program files" in the black box and pressing Enter I get "The
>> system cannot find the path specified".
I think there needs to be a back-slash between the "c:" and "program files", which smokie might have put in but the site software removed.
EDIT: as smokie confirms
Last edited by: Focusless on Thu 9 Jul 15 at 14:21
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Yep, sorry, ought to be a backslash, I forgot this thing strips them out.
I'd tend to agree with NoFMR2 that this isn't the issue but it's worth a looksee.
I also think at this stage I'd be doing a disk check.
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have you tried going into Control Panel -> Internet options -> advanced tab -> press reset browser to default button at bottom of windows. (you may as well tick the delete personal settings box in case the prob is something you've added). Make a copy of your favorites folder first if you wish, as these will probably be wiped, and you may want to re-add them.
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>> have you tried going into Control Panel -> Internet options -> advanced tab -> press
>> reset browser to default button at bottom of windows.
Funnily enough that's what I had to do this morning when I got to work and found I could only access internal sites, nothing external.
Well, I say 'I had to do', it was some IT chap God knows where using remote access. Wasn't you was it devonite? :)
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"have you tried going into Control Panel -> Internet options..."
Can't open Internet options in Control Panel. Nothing happens.
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"I also think at this stage I'd be doing a disk check."
ChkDsk done, with "Fix file system errors" checked and "recovery of bad sectors" checked.
It took literally hours, but the PC now seems much faster. (I didn't mention that it has slowed quite a bit today.)
However, No IE.
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>> Another odd thing - possibly related: if I click the Start button and try to
>> do a search from there it doesn't work and I get the message "search: query...
>> Catastrophic failure".
do you get a 0xnnnnnnn number with that failure?
My six pence worth.
Anyway, its sounds like you have got some corrupt DLL files, as its Vista and you don't have the disk I would be looking at upgrading to 7 or 8, and I would start planning it now while you have some access and before more vital stuff starts to go awol.
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"do you get a 0xnnnnnnn number with that failure?"
No.
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Did you get back to trying it without add-ons, as per my suggestion?
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>> Did you get back to trying it without add-ons, as per my suggestion?
There is other stuff going TU under the bonnet here
Can't open Internet options in Control Panel. Nothing happens.
search gives a catastrophic error
Internet Explorer issues are a symptom. Trying to fix IE is not the way to go here.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 9 Jul 15 at 19:46
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"Internet Explorer issues are a symptom. Trying to fix IE is not the way to go here."
Hm.
Does it begin to sound like a hard disk failure?
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>> Does it begin to sound like a hard disk failure?
certainly sounds like it its symptoms of disk corruption, your check disk would have baulked if you currently have disk failure, bout thats not to say you haven't lost sectors and data in the past and wont happen again in the future.
This is a warning. Your vista operating system is going to fall to bits big time soon. Start work on your recovery/upgrade plan now and do it quickly.
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"Start work on your recovery/upgrade plan now and do it quickly."
Given the age of the computer (7/8 years?) and its fairly heavy use - and the fact that I rely on it for my work - it points to a new machine, I think.
Grateful thanks to all who contributed.
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"Did you get back to trying it without add-ons, as per my suggestion?"
See above - no joy.
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Zero is right, this thing is about to fall apart. Make sure you get all your data and other stuff onto an external disk as soon as possible.
Also make a list of the programs you have downloaded, so that you can get them again. And I would recommend getting them again if its practical.
However, do put everything you transfer on an external drive. Because before you put it onto your new computer you should scan it very carefully indeed, just in case you have something nasty in there.
I had similar symptoms on a vista machine, but I cannot for the life of me think what it was in the end.
But I only had two issues with that machine, one was a disk failure and the other was malware, so it was one or the other.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Fri 10 Jul 15 at 03:52
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"Make sure you get all your data and other stuff onto an external disk as soon as possible."
Yeah, realised that. I use an external disk most evening to back up data anyway. But I wouldn't have thought to scan it. Malwarebytes - that sort of thing?
List of programs - good advice. Thanks!
Oddly enough, Windows update this morning offered me IE9. I okayed it, more out of curiosity than anything. Said the download was successful, but IE still doesn't work. Something else is broken in Vista, I guess.
Last edited by: Observer on Fri 10 Jul 15 at 10:07
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Sorry, I wasn't being clear, late night typing on a telephone through a haze of pisco.
Malwarebytes is as good as anything. As far as I can see the difference between the various larger products is only how quickly they will be updated with new threats. The difference between hours, days and weeks. I like Panda Online scans, MWB is good, there are also others.
Make sure you have a list of programs so that you can install them all again.
If one is a program that you downloaded then, where possible and practical, download them again to get a fresh copy, don't use the installation file that you may already have.
Where you have the file on disc, it'll be fine assuming that it works on whichever version of windows you end up with.
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" don't use the installation file that you may already have"
Totally agree but do be careful to make sure you have copies of any databases wghich sit under programs (e.g. iTunes library, outlook pst files etc).
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Thanks for this and other advice above.
I scanned the external drive with Malwarebytes and found and removed one PUP (OpenCandy), which I believe is fairly harmless anyway.
Fortunately I don't have "data under programs", like iTunes. Just a lot of photos and text and a few other bits and pieces, which are all on the external drive.
I've ordered a new PC and will have to bite the bullet of installing a shedload of stuff when it arrives.
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I guess you'll be binning the old machine, in which case take out the disk in case you later find you have forgotten to back something up.
With the new machine, once you have installed it and it has got all the updates etc (and before adding your chunky data, if it is chunky) use something like the free version of Macrium Reflect to take an image of the hard drive, onto your external drive. There is now an differential feature on the free version so you can do this regularly (space permitting) to always have a fallback - but I trend to keep a small C drive and always image the lot. You are also able to restore individual files from a Macrium backup, so it could have rescued you from your current position, if file corruption was to blame.
www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
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"You are also able to restore individual files from a Macrium backup, so it could have rescued you from your current position, if file corruption was to blame."
You see, this is where I feel out of my depth.
I have Macrium and did do some kind of image, but quite a long while ago. (Over a year?) I thought it would be too long back to attempt to do anything with it, as so much would have changed.
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Maybe, maybe not. If you can use some kind of program or command to compare ( - and they are out there - ) then you might be able to work out what is bust with your current system. As Zero said somewhere above, maybe some dll files are broken, but it's probably too big a job to work out what.
If you have a viable Macrium image from a year ago you could have tried restoring this (after saving your data) and letting all the updates happen. You'd still need to update stuff (programs) but might have saved a new system.
If that didn't work then a new install would be the next step.
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Quite by chance I came upon this, yesterday evening:
tinyurl.com/npc8xo5
It's called Reimage. It claims to repair Windows and "repairs & replaces corrupted
files..." PC World thought it was good.
At £45 I wouldn't say it was cheap, but if I hadn't ordered a new computer I might have been tempted.
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A repaired Windows is never a very stable Windows, you're better off with your new computer.
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>> It's called Reimage. It claims to repair Windows and "repairs & replaces corrupted
>> files..." PC World thought it was good.
It broke for a reason, a "reimage" does not resolve the root cause of the failure.
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 13 Jul 15 at 19:49
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It may be that you could have replaced one or more files and all would have been well. BUT;
- You don't know which files to replace
- You don't know what broke them and it might do it again
There is a point, as there is with cars, where replacement is better than repair, especially when you don't know exactly the fault.
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>>You see, this is where I feel out of my depth.
egg sucking and statements of the BBO follow;
A backup is simply copy of your files that you can fall back to in the event of a disaster. Essentially if you took a back up in March and then your hard disk died in April, all you need do is buy a new hard disk and put the back up on it. You would have lost anything which had occurred in the intervening month.
Consequently a backup from a year ago is better than nothing, but not much.
Within the idea of backup you have image backups and file backups.
In the first its an all or nothing thing. Keep your current state or replace the entire thing with the image from yesterday. This might be the option if you had lost your disk, or deleted or otherwise lost a whole bunch of files, or even if you knew some were damaged / missing, but didn't necessarily know which.
So in the case of a generally messed up system, you could conceivably solve your problem at the cost of the loss of anything which happened since the backup.
In File backups you have the option to pick and choose what to restore. So you may have deleted a single photo by mistake and could go to your backup and restore that single photo.
If you knew which bits of your operating system were messed up, you could pick and choose those files back in. Though that has two issues; knowing which files to replace, and knowing which other files may be linked to them and need changing, and knowing the ramifications of replacing those files.
My approach is to have an image backup of my machine when it was perfect. and file backups of all the files and data that have happened since. Thus I could use the image to restore the system and the files to replace lost data.
An annual image is more than enough for most needs.
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Internet Explorer won't start - smokie
