Explorer.exe Application failed to initialize.

Hi everyone. Today is my first day as a member though I'm quite familiar with this site having worked on many computers in the past few years. This is the first major problem I've had that I've been unable to find a solution to. The sad part is that this time it's my work computer.

Yestarday, around 10:30am my Avast! popped up and said it had detected a virus and asked what action to take. I chose to move to virus chest. It popped up two more times and I selected move to chest each time. The names of the virus's were Win32:trojan-gen{other} and Win32:trojano-3110. Shortly thereafter, my avast! alerted me that multiple emails were trying to be sent too fast from my computer and asked me what to do. I of course selected the block option. I ran a virus search with Avast!, then Trend-Micro Housecall, as well as Ad-aware and Spybot:S&D. I spent most of the day searching around the internet for help with this problem. I could not find any information when I searched for the names of the two trojans up above and found nothing.

This is where my post becomes relevant to the Software forum. Midway through the day, CLI.exe, which is a part of my ATI Graphics Card Control panel software, began crashing whenever I would reboot windows. I would receive three error messages in a row, all of them for CLI.exe. However, I was able to continue running windows with no problems. Shortly thereafter though, Internet Explorer stopped working(Netscape had stopped loading long before this which is why I had to use IE). IE would start fine but whenever I tried to bring a website up, it would sit for about 10 seconds doing nothing and then give me an error message and ask if I wanted to report it. I went to reboot my computer and when I did so, a number of applications crashed. Rundll.exe, explorer.exe and many others all crashed. When my computer restarted, I found that I could not access windows in normal mode. Whenever I do, regardless of which profile I use, I get the error; The application Explorer.exe failed to Initialize 0xc0000005 I am able to run my computer fine in Safe Mode. I've already read through the topics on this forum pertaining to explorer.exe errors and have had no success. I've tried multiple things to fix this, all of which I found in tech support forums like this one. I've tried replacing my wininet.dll file. I've checked my registry and explorer.exe is listed as the shell value under the appropriate registry entry. I cannot connect to the internet in safe mode(I had my network connection disabled when in normal mode the last time was able to access normal mode) and even if I start safe mode with networking and enable my network, it does not let me access the internet. Therefore, I cannot run any of the online virus scanners suggested in the sticky post. I did install and run Panda virus software before leaving work yestarday. When I arrived this morning, the virus scan log said that no virus's had been found. I've downloed Ccleaner and run it. I've downloaded HijackThis and searched for varius listings i've found in various posts, none of which have been found. I'm going to post my HJT log file with this post. I saw one forum where someone suggested that the explorer.exe problem might be a corrupt video driver. I have tried to replace my ATI drivers with a generic VGA driver in Safe Mode but it does not let me. Does anyone know how to do this? I've tried scf /scannow(may not have spelled correctly but only because I don't remember it) and it was not able to initialize. I am at an impasse here. To make matters worse, I have misplaced my Dell restore and drivers CD's that came with my work system. I have ordered replacements but they will not arrive for a few days and this system is the basis of everything I do here at work thus it is vital I get it running as soon as possible. That and I thought it would be nice if we could get this figured out together and help anyone with the same problem as me in the future.

BTW, I am posting this on a co-workers computer. Also, sorry about the long post but I wanted to include as much detail as possible.

My system is a Dell Dimension 9100, Intel Pentium D 2.80ghz, 1 Gig RAM, PCI-E X600 ATI 128mb Graphics Card running Windows XP Home SP2 Build 2600

 

What happens in Normal mode? Are you getting just the background, no icons or taskbar.

Steve

 

Some quick general stuff here, you probably already covered most of this yourself, but I just want to doublecheck.

1. Aside from shell extensions and hijack logs, you have disabled browser extensions and disabled all IE add-ons via internet options, right? A broken extension or add-on could cause this problem, even if it is non-malicious and/or "normal"

2. Have you tried using msconfig to disable everything but the MS services and rebooting? (never do diagnostic startup- destroys restore points, among other things)

3. Have you tried a system restore?

4. Have you tried disabling DEP? (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875352/en-us)

5. And, as Matacumbie asked, can you get to ANY sort of desktop (even a blank one) in normal mode?

BTW, just FYI- SFC /scannow is a GREAT thing to try for this type of problem, but it does not run in safe mode.

Best of luck!

 

You're trying to install generic VGA drivers on a PCI-E computer?.... that makes no sense at all to me... but you sound smarter than me, just could someone fill me in on how that works?

 

No, I have not tried that yet. What I should mention is that before I left work today(after my original post though), I was able to connect to the internet in safe mode with networking. IE worked as well in safe mode. I do not know what I did that caused the net to suddenly start working because it hadn't worked in safe mode yestarday and most of the day today. Before leaving work, I was able to get Panda 2005 Anti-Virus updated and left it running a full scan of my system. This is the first time I've been able to scan my system since my explorer problem started. I'll see the results of that when I get to work tomorrow. Anyhow, if you think disabling those items would help in normal mode, how would I go about doing that?

Yes, I have disabled all but the windows services, even my ATI video control programs.

Multiple times as well as registry restores from back-ups I've made over the past 2 monthes using System Mechanic Professional 6. After running System Restore and rebooting, it told me that the restore was not successful. I tried restoring to multiple dates from the past 2 weeks.

No, I will check that out tomorrow at work.

Sorry about that, I should have clarified this in my original post. When I boot in normal mode, I get the Welcome to Windows screen like normal. When it is working normally(not broken like it is now), my system takes me right to my desktop since I am the only user and do not have any other profiles. I added a second profile today to see if it might work but not surprisingly it didn't. So, when I click on my username, it will start loading and displays the "loading your settings..." message. 9 out of 10 times at this point I will get an error box with the error message from my orginal post followed by another identical one with the same message. After clicking "okay", my system hangs in the welcome screen for about 20-30 seconds and then goes to my desktop where all I can see is my wallpaper. I say 9 out of 10 times because every so often I do not get the error box but my system will still hang at the same point. I can access my task manager via ctrl-alt-del but I have not been able to run a single program using the New Task option. I've tried many programs, from simple "cmd" to Winamp to Tiger Woods 2006 PGA Tour. Nothing runs from the task manager.

Right now, I can't remember if I tried running this with the task manager or not. I will try it tomorrow and find out if this works. But you're right, it definately does not run in safe mode.

P.S. To the person asking about generic VGA with a PCI-E system, I only want to load a generic VGA driver to see if the problem is related to a corrupt driver for my ATI card. When I am in safe mode and go to display settings, it only lists VGAsave as my adaptor. I've never seen this before. The properties menu it brings up is also differant from anything I've seen before. However, I don't know if this is normal in XP safe mode or if this is abnormal. In my Device Manager, it lists my normal x600 video card as the display adaptor though.

 

One thing you might check, if possible.

Press CTRL > ALT > DEL to bring up Task Manager. And click File, New Task (Run..) and enter regedit and click OK. This will run the registry editor. Now look for the below registry keys (navigate thru the registry).

NOTE:Make sure you only look for and delete the exact keys listed below ( right-click to delete ).

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\explorer.exe

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\iexplorer.exe

Restart and your desktop and taskbar should return.

Steve

 

That was one thing that I found to try in these forums yestarday. Neither of those entries are present in my registry. On a brighter note, when I arrived at work this morning, my Panda AV had found and taken action against atleast 10 differant viri and spyware. I have yet to reboot my computer to see if my explorer problem has been fixed. I am running the virus scan again to see if it finds anything else. It's at 75% now and hasn't found anything. I'll post again later.

 

My system was actually able to restart into the desktop in normal mode. This was after running Panda AV and removing a lot of viri. However, my elation was short-lived as my computer blue screened not long after getting to the desktop. The stop error was 0x0000008e. This error is associated with bad RAM. However, I have worked on computers where the problem was the RAM and you could not boot to safe mode on those computers. I can run my system in safe mode completely fine still.

I am currently running the Panda online AV scan. I'm going to see where this takes me.

 

Panda AV online found no errors. When I am able to boot into the desktop, it will be fine for about 20 seconds and then it will give me the blue screen. This leads me to believe it may be a driver issue. Any suggestions?

 

Other than maybe a driver issue or recently installed software, you might try going thru the Spyware steps here, http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407

There is quite a bit of info on Win32:Trojano, seems like a lot of "work" systems get infected. I would see if some of the other programs find any malware and ask for help if you need assistance. Good luck.

Steve

 

As of now, my system is almost back to normal. Yestarday, I disabled everything in the startup portion of msconfig. After doing that, I was able to boot my computer in normal mode with no stop errors. There are a few glitches still. For example, Netscape will not load even after a reinstall. I tried running sfc /scannow but you need your windows install CD to complete that and mine has not arrived in the mail yet from Dell. I expect it in the next couple days at which point I'll complete the sfc process. I'm hoping that will put my system back to normal and I'll be able to avoid a full reinstall.

 

I cannot begin to explain how much I hate Dell computers.

The System File Checker cannot update my files because it won't accept my windows CD. I tried going to the microsoft website but they directed me to dell after I entered my Product Number. While I've always thought Dell computer's were junk, I atleast figured their tech support would be nice since they make such a big hullabaloo about it in their advertising. DON'T BE MISLED. If your problem isn't a very basic software problem, they want to charge you 100 dollars for the tech support you receive. What a load of crap. Anyway, to get back on topic, it was suggested that I uninstall all the windows updates as this would put my windows back to the version that came off the CD. I have uninstalled all the updates except the Hotfixes. I cannot uninstall those from the Add/Remove programs menu. I am trying to avoid a full reinstall here. Does anyone know how to remove the hotfixes or get my computer to the point where it will accept my Dell XP Home Edition CD to restore the corrupted system files with SFC?

Sorry about the Dell rant there. I just got done talking to them and I was pretty miffed.