When I turn on my laptop I get a the error message "This application has failed to start because WININET.dll was not found" I have down loaded the missing file but can insall it because (due to the missing file) windows does not load any desktop icons rendering it inoperable Can anyone help? Gav

Have you scanned for viruses? Check here to download the file: http://www.dlldll.com/wininet.dll_d... Life's more painless for the brainless.

Tap F8 whilst booting and see if you can get yourself to the Safe Mode screen. If so the file will fit on a floppy (assuming you have a floppy drive) and can be put back. More than one copy of wininet.dll might be present but it is most likely that the culprit is the one in c:\windows\system32 DerekW

Thanks for the tips it turns out that a whole host of my System 32 files had been changed to show .dll(2). When I took off the bracketed number from each the laptop booted up fine. I hope this will not affect the system? Gav

The bracketted files sometimes arive after you do a system restore (previous versions - no longer used), but leave a normal version without brackets in place. Maybe restore glitched. What you did sounded fine and got things working so I doubt there will be any aftermath. It would be worth creating a new restore point. DerekW

Thats that one put to bed, Thanks all Gav