iexplore - kernel32.dll crash

A customer brought in an XP Home SP2 machine that was heavily infected with
viruses and scumware. After removing all of it (Norton AV, MS Antispy,
Adaware, Spybot, and Spysweeper all say it is now clean). Hijackthis tends
to confirm this, with all BHOs gone. It now runs quite well, except for IE.

IE 6 will not run at all, except in a special instance. More on that later.
If you try to launch it (homepage = www.msn.com, also tried www.cnn.com), you
get the Internet Explorer has encountered an error... message. Event log
shows "faulting application iexplore.exe version 6.0.2900.2180, faulting
module kernel32.dll version 5.1.2600.2180.

Just to be sure, 3rd party browser extensions are disabled in Internet
Properties - Advanced. The special instance where it actually will launch is
when it is launched by Spysweeper after an install or uninstall, taking you
to Webroot's web page. If you then try to go to any other site, it crashes
the same.

An older version of McAfee antivirus was apparently ineffective at
preventing infection and does not run properly, but since, in their infinite
wisdom, they rely on IE to uninstall, it won't (IE script errors). Sweet.
Unlike Norton, they don't offer nifty little uninstall utilities for such
cases. I am hesitant to wade through the registry as you never know for sure
that you've gotten all the vxds and dlls, and I've seen some strange things
happen when orphans are still active.

Another issue that I thought may have been contributing was that the .net
installation was hammered. After getting past the famous "can't uninstall
because XP thinks it is not installed/can't install because it is already
installed" issue, I got it installed, but it got me wondering if .net
interaction with IE is at the root of this.

Since the online virus scanners seem to require IE/ActiveX to run, I haven't
done any additional scanning for viruses, but it seems to run great and surfs
fine with Firefox.

Since it is running XP SP2, you can't use the trick anymore of setting
ActiveSetup isinstalled = 0 to force a reinstall of IE 6, so I did try a
reinstall of SP2, to no avail.

Any ideas?


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: 96358 failed to install
    ... I suspect that Norton was running in the background when you reinstalled SP2 and this may have led to your issues. ... Other than doing a format/reinstall of Windows, ... Double-click Automatic Updates> Click on Stop ... After making certain you have a copy of your Product Key, uninstall all Norton software via Add/Remove Programs. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: After SP2 Try getting the Live Update Patch and then Install SP2
    ... *By all means install SP2--you are better off undoubtably with it ... and NIS 2004 among other Norton ... then install SP2 and you should be fine. ... Windows XP. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.customize)
  • Re: Not the same procedure entry point but same result...
    ... I believe the whole process of uninstalling the Hotfix and then SP2 may have ... you would have received an error message telling you ... > reinstall some of if after the uninstall operation. ... > you have the correct SP2 install. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsupdate)
  • Re: After SP2 and the LU Patches Norton Products Still Have a Panopoly of Problems
    ... I appreciate the Live Update patch came out with their FAQ. ... that *SP2 breaks Live Update* whether you uninstall Norton and install SP2 ... The part left out on the KB is to install any other antivirus product--many ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.customize)
  • Re: Windows XP SP2 updates problem with SHLWAPI.DLL and SHCreateThread
    ... > applied to a computer in which SP2 was not fully installed. ... > installed, and prompted them to install KB834707, which they did. ... I was able to reboot in normal mode ... The uninstall always failed. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsupdate)
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