Internet Explorer won't start

I suggest using a different browser like firefox or opera :) for future reference.

Gecko, I hear you. I do actually use Opera or Firefox most of the time, but that pesky web app is .NET-based and there are still a few browser-compatibility problems. And Windows update won't run through anything but IE.

SheharyaarSaahil (phew...), thanks for the suggestion, I'll give it a try, just waiting for another scan to finish first...

you can call me as Shehar! :)

That is a lot easier to type and say Shehar, talk about a tongue twister for an id lol.

Shehar, I'm afraid that didn't work. Just noticed something else that's odd. I opened search to search the hard drive for files with wowexec in the name. It starts searching and after a couple of seconds crashes (without any error/warning messages) and just like IE, when I look in task manager just before it crashes drwtsn32.exe starts up...

You gave an idea though. I'm going to try and fiddle around with the Internet Settings a bit and 'lock down' IE as far as possible to see if there's anything there that's causing this.

Why not just do a repair install :

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Then open internet explorer go to Tools --> Windows Updates

Then do critical updates and update to SP 1 as well.

Then from there get anti spyware programs like microsofts beta, spy sweeper and or ad aware.

Then that should fix IE.

Also run virus scans, one online virus scan and one local one :

Free online virus scan :

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Get AVG Free edition for the local scan :

www.grisoft.com

I hope this helps !

FYI - make sure all defintions for the programs ie anti spyware , virus programs etc, are all up to date with defintions etc

hmmmmmmm can you think about doing a system restore to the time when everything was working fine?
OR how about creating a new user account and check out there if same symptoms?

Gecko, I was trying to avoid something as extreme as a OS install, though if I don't get it right soon I'll probably have to try that. Have run both TrendMicroa and AVG, both 100% up-to-date.Spybot is 100% up-to-date and I'm using the latest version of hijackthis.

Shehar, I think I might try the system restore.

Before I go on, while I was fiddling with all the IE settings I cleared the history etc, but when I try to "Delete Files..." with the "Delete all offline content" option selected, I get the exception message

An exception occurred while trying to run "shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL "C:\Windows\System32\inetcpl.cpl",Internet Options"

That XP repair install is suddenly starting to sound good. Sounds like a corrupt file, doesn't it? Will system restore help for that???

Or, I guess it could be a problem with some of the "offline content" that it's trying to delete, in which case logging on under a different userid might just do the trick...

Shehar, you are a genius my friend. Although now that I think about it, I can't believe I hadn't thought of that myself ;-)

Definitely a problem with that user account. Logged on under another domain account as well as a local admin account and they were both fine! So I'll just make a backup of my docs and delete that profile from the HD. Thanks for your help.

And I was about to start re-installing/repairing the OS? phew again!

well that's cool :)

but if you have not already deleted this user, you can ry one thing!
delete the files from the following folders from safemode!

C:\Documents and Settings\your username\Local Settings\Temp and delete all files present here
C:\Documents and Settings\your username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files, and delete the folder of ContentIE
C:\Documents and Settings\your username\Cookies, and delete all cookies present here
C:\Documents and Settings\your username\Local Settings\History, and delete all the files from here
C:\WINDOWS\Offline Web Pages and delete the stored offline webpages from here

now restart, login with this same user, and check out if it can behave normally, or still acting weird!
if still the same issue, then you can backup and tranfer your documents to a new user profile, otherwise just use this user and Enjoy! :)

Thanks, but that's ok, already deleted and re-created the user, the only important things in there were some documents which I got successfull backups of.