IE wont open in 'normal' mode.

[BolshieBastard]

Fecking Microsoft!

PC worked fine last night surfing the net. Today IE wont open in normal mode. I can only get on the net in 'Safe' mode (ho, ho!).

I just get the MS dialog 'IE could not open and will close' blah, blah, blah.

Im running XP Pro SP1 and IE 6 (yes I know its old tulip and I cant download SP2 either!)

There's no virus as I've run Malwarebytes and McAfee.

[minestrone]

fliping Microsoft!

PC worked fine last night surfing the net. Today IE wont open in normal mode. I can only get on the net in 'Safe' mode (ho, ho!).

I just get the MS dialog 'IE could not open and will close' blah, blah, blah.

Im running XP Pro SP1 and IE 6 (yes I know its old tulip and I cant download SP2 either!)

There's no virus as I've run Malwarebytes and McAfee.

Let me guess, you are a scouser?

[BolshieBastard]

Let me guess, you are a scouser?

Let me guess, you're a stupid ****.

[minestrone]

Let me guess, you're a stupid ****.

Well I am not the one complaining an eight year old knocked off product has stopped working. When you got a rip in your latest 8 year old kappa tracksuit did you go back down the pub you got it from and try and find the seller?

[NickFitz]

You've almost certainly got some malware; as you're running XP SP 1 + IE 6, it's probably something intended for XP SP>=2 + IE 6, which is why it fails on an SP 1 installation.

I could waste your time asking why on earth you're running SP 1, which is ludicrously insecure, but you've probably asked yourself that many times. (I doubt you've ever come up with a good answer though.)

Seriously, you're safer running Win95 than XP SP 1; the twunts gave up creating malware for Win95 years ago, but XP SP 1 is like raw meat to them.

The fact that it worked yesterday but is broken today allows me to use my psychic powers to deduce that you restarted the system between then and now, or at least logged out and in again. It was at the point of restarting (in which case it's deep in your system) or logging in (in which case it might only affect that user account) that the relevant, hacked, DLLs were first loaded by the system, or the hacked Registry keys applied.

You probably don't want to hear this, but there's actually a good reason why people recommend using a browser other than IE, such as Opera or Firefox. Sure, lots of those people are just haters of all things Microsoft, or merely resent the fact that IE 6 is such a bug-ridden pile of garbage that makes their lives a misery as they have to support its endemic fail.

But some of them understand all of the security implications of using IE 6 (especially on XP SP < 2), and when they exhort you, if you must use XP SP 1, to stop using IE 6, they do so for good reasons, and for your own good.

So I exhort you: if you must use XP SP 1 then do not, under any circumstances, use IE 6. Use another browser, for IE 6 is dangerous to use without XP SP 2. Even Microsoft admit that. (Actually, Microsoft admit that XP itself is dangerous to use without SP 2 on any machine that's ever connected to a network, whether local or t'Internet.)

Sorry I can't help with your immediate problem, but (and I don't mean this to sound patronising, although it does, but I don't mean it to be) the assertion that "There's no virus as I've run Malwarebytes and McAfee" suggests that you don't properly understand the nature of the risks: try running something that looks for unwanted BHOs [Browser Helper Objects, which are supposed to be helpful toolbars and suchlike, but which can also be nasties which hide themselves and mess with the deep internals of the browser] which aren't viruses and may not even be looked for by virus scanners, and more generally for malware and crapware. Microsoft's "Windows Defender" was usually good at finding stuff that anti-virus scanners didn't pick up on; but I don't know what they call it these days, and knowing MS, they won't have a version that supports XP SP 1 anyway.

Good luck

[xoggoth]

Safe mode net? No porn you mean? Awful.

[BolshieBastard]

Well I am not the one complaining an eight year old knocked off product has stopped working. When you got a rip in your latest 8 year old kappa tracksuit did you go back down the pub you got it from and try and find the seller?

oh do **** off you sad ****.

[blacjac]

oh do **** off you sad ****.

Touched a nerve?

[minestrone]

oh do **** off you sad ****.

Charming.

[BoredBloke]

oh do **** off you sad ****.

They don't call him BolshieBastard for nothing!