Hi, I've had this problem for a long time. It's not serious, but irritating. When I click on the menu arrow of the "Look in" field of the file finder, the file finder closes. When I click on the menu arrow of explorer's "address" field, explorer closes. When I click on the menu arrow of internet explorer's (5.5) "address" field, I get the "illegal operation" window, and I have to shut IE down. I have tried everything I can think of, short of reinstalling windows 98se, reinstalling over 98se, adaware, AVG, repaiing IE, majour cleanups, scandisk, etc. Any ideas? Thanks, John

Does it happen in safe mode? Try ctrl+alt+del and stop all programs except explorer, still happen? Try disabling everything in startup in msconfig, reboot, still happen? Best

You could also Shut down to MS-DOS and type scanreg /fix from DOS prompt then hit Return key. This rebuilds current registry - harmless even if it doesn't cure problem. Type exit and hit Return to restart Windows. DerekW

Hi Jubalsams/Derek, Well, I tried both suggestions and neither had any effect. Any other ideas? Thanks, John

Seems like Windows drop-down features are a bit screwed. Usually Windows overlay sorts this but clearly not this time. I can only imagine that either a registry cleaner has dumped something it shouldn't (if you use these) or there is a wrong file version somewhere - no idea which one though. Sorry, I'm out of ideas apart from reformat which seems a bit dramatic. If anything comes to me I'll pop back but don't hold your breath. DerekW

Problem solved, and yes you are right Derek, it was a wrong version. I forgot to mention that before explorer and IE would shut down they would give me the illegal operation window saying that module comctl32.dll was the problem. When I replaced this with my 98se version I got a black background in my quick launch bar, but the described problems had disappeared, so I knew I was on the right path. So I tried repairing IE, and this time it told me I was using too old a version of comctl32.dll. (Oddly enough when I ran IE repair with the other wrong version I didn't get any warning at all. I'm thinking that one of my installed programs installed the wrong version of comctl32.) So, I replaced comctl32.dll again, this time with the version from my IE5.5 installation files. Voila, problem solved. Sorry about the long winded description. I appreciate the help. Thanks, John

Great - you did well. Not long winded at all, it is good to hear what you did to fix this one. Like you I would have probably expected IE Repair to have picked it up before (shows how wrong we can be LOL). Being wise after the event the description of that file "Common Controls Library" kinda says it all. Well worth knowing - thx. DerekW