"cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 4 Aug 2007 12:10:03 -0400, "MEB" wrote:
"Robert Aldwinckle" wrote
| "genaugsberg" wrote
| IMO there is such a dearth of diagnostic tools for Win9x
| that likely you will only be able to resolve this by doing
| clean-boot troubleshooting. E.g. remove all unnecessary
| add-ons and other likely sources of interference to prove
| that IE6 is not the cause. Etc.
There are good tools from Nirsoft (www.nirsoft.net - not the domain
squatter on the .com equivalent). Most of them will let you
reversably disable items. The relevant ones would be codecs, BHOs,
ActiveX, Shell Extension Viewer, IE add-ons etc.
But I don't think that there is anything equivalent to drwtsn32.log
or ProcMon, either of which would expose the Stack Back Trace
of the crashing thread? It's funny because drwatson.log used to
exist and provide similar diagnostics in Windows 3.0 (for 16-bit
programs.)
| When I'm using the Internet, all of a sudden I receive an error
| stating that the program has perfomed an invalid
...illegal...
| operation and will be shut down. When I close it, another
| window appears stating that IE will end and if I continue to
| have errors to restart my computer.
That's where NTx users could capture a snap dump in drwtsn32.log
As in, shudown (not the reset button or vulcan salute!)
| EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in
| module MSHTML.DLL at 017f:6363f7ad.
I just realized that this could be a transcription error.
E.g. wouldn't it at least say EXPLORER.EXE if it was Windows crashing?
Perhaps it really said iexplore.exe instead?
Otherwise I don't know why the crash would be in Windows,
especially in that module...
MSHTML.DLL is IE's HTML renderer, a richly-exploited surface that is
waved at any HTML that is passed to Windows, e.g.
- IE and web pages
- Windows Explorer's active desktop and "View As Web Page"
.... forgot about that too. ; ) Maybe!
FWIW I just remembered that WDU in NT4sp6a occasionally
crashed in browserui.dll. I can't recollect exactly what I would
have done to try to deal with those instances, probably just
used IE Repair (or the appropriate regsvr32 commands.)
- .CHM help files
- .EML files, as "opened" by OE irrespective of current email app
- any email app that uses IE's engine to display "message text"
- OE, Outlook, many 3rd-party email apps
Explorer may use aspects generally associated with IE if segments of Active
Desktop, html viewing, thumbnails, or other aspects, are used within
Explorer, and vice versa [respectively].
True.
1. Was this party directed to check their settings for these activities?
Strong recommendations:
- ensure IE is at least SP2 of version 5.01 or 5.5
- disable active desktop
- disable View As Web Page
a. applications which might have been installed or removed just prior to
this occurring;
b. whether any registry modifications may have been manually or
automatically applied by some program prior to this activity.
c. whether tweakui or a similar program may be or have been installed
OR removed.
TweakUI's generally OK, YMMV with others. Also, suspect registry
cleaners, which may have chopped out stuff that wasn't as redundant as
the cleaner had assumed.
b. what *helpers* might have been or are being used by the browser.
IE 6, Tools, Advanced; UNcheck "allow 3rd-party enhancements"
That's the old global switch which has been superseded in IE7 by its
No Add-ons mode. For selective enabling or disabling of BHO use
BHODemon (from DefinitiveSolutions). Thanks, I should have mentioned
those options.
Beyond that, the Nirsoft tools I mentioned earlier. Be careful, etc.;
for example, in Shell Extension Viewer, I'd restrain myself to
disabling only non-MS integrations.
I'd also do formal malware scans (e.g. DOS-based av scanners from
Sophos, F-Prot, NOD32 etc. from DOS mode boot) and Safe Mode scans
using Windows-based scanners for commercial malware, e.g. AdAware,
Spybot, A-Squared, AVG Antispyware, if these work in Win98, and being
careful to avoid the 200+ fake "antispyware" crud that's out there.
Then I'd install Spyware Blaster and apply that tool's passive
protection. I might also seriously consider Firefox, which at least
can be kept patched up to date (until they, too, drop support for OSs
that haven't been current for 5 years)
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Let's make a humming sound
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Thanks for the discussion. These days specific procedures for Win9x
have been mostly forgotten in the IE newsgroups, so I'm glad I added
the cross-post to capture your comments.
Robert
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