[twentymilesup]

Hi all,

I have a 2-week old Dell Inspiron laptop. I have all spyware/virus programs installed (Pest Patrol, Spybot S&D, AdAware, PcIllin), but tonight when i started my computer I got "explorer.exe - application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000005). click on OK to terminate application" - I tried to do the whole "run explorer.exe w/ task manager" but it does not work at all. I'm writing this from my boyfriend's computer b/c I cannot get ANY icons to appear on my desktop.

Please, please help. Brand new computer - do not know how this happened. I have Windows XP.

Thanks so much.....

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Hi and welcome to Geeks to Go. New computer, and you didn't do anything to cause it? My first suggestion, since it is NEW and should be under warranty with Dell, would be to contact Dell tech support for some personal assistance (don't they advertise that on TV?).

[austin_o]

Hi and welcome to Geeks to Go. New computer, and you didn't do anything to cause it? My first suggestion, since it is NEW and should be under warranty with Dell, would be to contact Dell tech support for some personal assistance (don't they advertise that on TV?).

[twentymilesup]

No, actually I hadn't seen that on TV...but regardless I did contact Dell customer support. Said it was most likely a Microsoft issue...and it resulted in me completely reformatting my computer as though it was...once again...brand new. I hope that doesn't happen again - wasn't too happy/thrilled especially since it is so new.

Happened right after I installed/used Office 2003. Strange...

[Retired Tech]

Did you run Microsoft Update

http://update.micros...t.aspx?ln=en-us

The custom option will let you choose the ones you want, though you should select all critical the ones and run it until there are no critical ones to download

[twentymilesup]

I did, thank you! Of course, after I reformatted everything. Dell support took me through a few patches in Safe Mode, but the problem wouldn't go away .... hence reformatting (if that's what you call it). Now I'm trying to fix my old laptop as well (that's another post on this website - w/ my HijackThis! log. Winfixer is baaaaack!).

You guys are simply wonderful! Thank you!!!!!