WinXP was operating great. When it was turned on today, the WinXP screen comes up as usual, after which the Welcome screen and the sound arrive, after which the background screen boots without any icons or start menu and an error box appears which is entitled: Explorer.EXE-Bad Image Within the box is the message: The application DLL C:\Windows\System32\Browseui.dll is not a valid Windows image. Please check this against your installation diskette. So there is no way to execute programs or turn off the computer except via the power button itself. Has anyone seen this before? What could have caused this? Can anyone suggest a fix? How do I or should I check this against the installation diskette? I am concerned that a re-install will require all the applications to be re-installed. Thanks so much for your help. Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

Boot your system and press F8 during the POST. At the Windows Advanced Options Menu, choose Last Known Good Configuration. If that does not work, reboot your system and press F8 during the POST, then select Safe Mode. When the computer reports that your system is running in Safe Mode, click No so you can use System Restore to restore the computer to an earlier configuration when it was working properly. If that does not work then insert the win xp cd in the cd-rom drive. Reboot your system. When win xp Setup starts, press Enter. Press Enter again to choose To Set Up Windows xp Now, press Enter. Press F8 to accept the agreement. When Setup finds your previous installation of win xp , press R to repair the selected installation. Choose your win xp installation from the list, and press R to repair it. When Setup has completed you will find all of your previousl installed apllication and settings are intact. Hope this helps. Bye

Hi Don, Don't know if you tried this. Hit the F8 key on start up and select "last known good configuration" If this lets you in ok you could then do a sfc /scannow in your run dialog box, this shold then replace any corrupt or missing system files. Hope this helps good luck Cheers Alan

Thanks for the suggestions all. I was interested in finding out what caused this since choosing last known good config or safe mode did not help and both approaches resulted in the same problem as I described above. I will try the repair option tommorrow.