I have an error message as soon as I turn on my computer, Performed an illegal operation and must shut down. I can't go any further. Can someone help me. I've tried scanreg/restore in DOS, HP recovery disk, nothing helps. I don't have the original OS Disks.

Nicole

Tap F8 whilst booting and if you make it to the start menu select Safe Mode. If you can get there it might be possible to take things further.

DerekW

Thanks Derek. I've tried that. Even in safe mode, I still get that error. I would like to uninstall explorer because I think that's the problem, but I can't do anything at all in safe mode. Is there a prompt in DOS that can do that?

Nicole

I assume you mean "Internet" Explorer. No, it is spread all over the place and highly integrated with windows.

Bit stuck with no CD. Can you give any background, what led up to it and why you suspect IE?

It would be possible to disable the iexplore.exe file from DOS but it's not easy to see how that is stopping you getting to the Safe Mode screen.

DerekW

I know that is has a virus. I'm getting this message when windows is loading. I can only click on start, and as soon as I click on my computer, I get that message and I can't go further. Unfortunately there is no virus protection on this computer. My ex was using Kaaza, and who knows what else....any advise would be appreciated. If you need more info, I'll do my best to provide...I have lots of my daughters baby pic on this computer and would really like to save them if possible.

Nicole

It should be possible to pick them out from DOS if you know exactly what folder they were in. They could be copied to floppies but bear in mind that a floppy doesn't hold more than about 1.38M in real life, so it would take quite a few and a fair amount of time.

DerekW

You said in your initial post that you get that error message and can't go any further, yet in your first reply to Derek you say you went to Safe Mode and got the same message.Getting in to Safe Mode is going pretty far, and as Derek suggested, Safe Mode is designed for fixing things! You can run SFC, Scan Disk, Scanreg /fix, and run any installed antivirus programs. You can even play CD's if you know the command to enable CD-ROM support in Safe Mode. And finally, if you can run Safe Mode you can copy all your files to floppy.
If, in fact, you really can't run in Safe Mode, please disregard all the above. If your machine has a fatal error which can't be fixed (hard to imagine) you can use a boot disk and get to your files via "Dir /P" Dos command and copy them to floppy.
Please post back for more support. Don't give up just yet!

This is what I'm getting when I start Windows 98 and get the error message- This program has performed an illegal operation and will shut down: Here are the details.

EXPLORER caused a stack fault in module
SHLWAPI.DLL at 016f: 70bd35a8.
Registers:
EAX=00000409 CS=016F EIP=70BD35A8EFLGD=000102022
EBX=84000000 SS=0177 ESP=0056lec4 EBP=005622ec
ECX=00562566 DS=0177 ESI=00000000 FS=2ccf
EDX=00562566 ES=0177 EDI=0056345c GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
56 33 f6 39 35 00 60 cl 70 0f 85 74 da 01 00 39
Stack dump:
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000000

Does this mean anything to anyone?

Thanks,

Doesn't mean much to me. I too was a tad confused about the Safe Mode situation. Are you able to copy any picture files from there (to floppies for starters)?

DerekW

What I don't get is that he says he has the HP Restore disks but not the original OS disks. Which is it, do you have the disks for the computer or not?

Who gave you people access to a computer?

I do not have the original OS disks that came with the computer.