My Internet Explorer won't start. I get a message that it has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. This started right after I had removed some spyware programs I found. I restarted the computer and was prompted to enter my windows serial number, which I thought was wierd, then the desktop came up, then the message. Of course I don't have any icons and can't access any programs. I am using another PC in the house to see if I could get some help here. I changed out my hard drives, making an old hard drive I have with windows95 (haha) my primary drive and pluged in the other as a slave drive in an attempt to scan the files on that drive for any kind of virus, but found nothing. So here is the illegal operation details message.. EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in module EXPLORER.exe at 0167:00401f31. Registers: EAX=00000000 CS=0167 EIP=00401f31 EFLGS=00010246 EBX=00000001 SS=016f ESP=0080feec EBP=0080fef4 ECX=c16a7d70 DS=016f ESI=00000000 FS=2337 EDX=0080fefc ES=016f EDI=00000000 GS=0000 Bytes at CS:EIP: 8b 08 50 ff 11 8b 45 08 50 8b 08 ff 51 08 8b 45 Stack dump: 00401ee0 0080fefc 0080ff34 00405cac 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000001 00404436 00000000 0059fc0c 00000001 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 So I am kinda stumped on what all that means and I surely don't have a clue how to by-pass and/or solve this problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I shut it down and restarted and still the same thing, I even tried entering in safe mode but IE still won't start. This time there was a difference in a value in the details message, all were the same as above except for this one... ECX=c16aace0

Try going into add and remove programs click on internet explorer and hit repair. Note if you have never upadted internet explorer before then you will not see it in the add/remove programs. If you don't see it then try to find Internet Explorer 5.5 to download because you can't download Internet Explorer 6 on Windows 95 so you will have to go to google and find a Internet Explorer 5.5 download then save it to your desktop then burn it onto a cd so you can install it on your pc Updating will fix the problem

For reference purposes, lets call my drive with Win98 that has the problem drive B and the old one with Win95 drive A. I am not sure how to access the add/remove programs on B when I can't get windows explorer to start. I did some research and found the most common solution to this problem is by using the OS disc and reinstalling windows. However this is not an option since I don't have that disc.

Okay, I even to bootdisk.com and created a boot disk, thinking that might do the trick and that didn't work. I am at a loss as to what to do...anyone have any advice?

You said the problem started right after removing spyware. Why don't you just undo the spyware removal (roll it back using the spyware program), that should get you back to normal. Sounds like you removed something wrong. If you need a simple solution, try mine. I try to give advise on things that have happened to my PC. Changes in registry can be FATAL! Glad to have a chance to help you.

Everyone here seems to be giving you advise on how to fix the problem through Windows, Have I got this wrong or are you saying the PC wont boot to windows on the original installlation? Also if you are having a problem with "explorer.exe" this is Windows Explorer NOT Internet explorer! Wizard ICT. Microsoft Certified Professional