okay,

well, heres the thing, i do feel like i am grasping at straws, as gary said
in this thread. but, i dont want to spend all day, or days, on the web,
searching for the solution to my problem. i also do not wish to just reformat
my drive and run setup afresh. i did a little searching though, getting links
to microsoft knowledge base articles, though one, that seemed to really apply
to my situation, didnt resolve anything. i kept getting the same problem.

the problem i am trying to resolve is, when i have restarted my computer
from a previous, STABLE working condition; as the desktop is loading up, i
get an error message come up on the screen, saying:

"Explorer"
This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. If
this problem persists, contact the program vendor.

details:
"EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in module EXPLORER.EXE at 0167:00401f31
with registers, bytes and stack dumps.
.............i can list those extra details, but hopefully, youll be able to
pinpoint how i can fix this problem.

i came across the knowledgebase article number, 296211 at
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=296211, thinking it applied to my issue,
and followed its instructions. i went as far as step 7 in the resolution
section and restarted my computer. the same error occurred. there is a note
mentioned after step 7 that i did not apply yet, cos it doesnt look like
something that applies to my problem.

please advise
thank you