User.exe

[Magicb6076]

Sometimes when I close out of an Internet Explorer webpage, or I close out of Control Panel a message pops up saying...."Internet Explorer has caused a problem in USER.EXE" What does this mean and how can I fix it? I have Windows ME. Thanks.... Brandon

[GaryRouth]

Well, just to make sure that it's not univited guests causing trouble, download and run either AdAware (http://www.lavasoft.de) or Search&Destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org/) -or use them both- to remove any resident spyware. Also run a full system scan with your antivirus program, using up-to-date definitions, you might also double-check by using a free online scanner, too - such as HouseCall over on TrendMicro's site: http://housecall.trendmicro.com.

If that doesn't do it, post again: with the exact error message (click on the "Details" button if there is one), and we'll take it from there
. . . Gary

[late edit: just in case you run your scans and everything's clean, but you still get the errors, try opening control panel items one at a time from the Start/Run box. If you do a search for *.cpl --this will list the Control Panel applets on your system. You can try starting them until you find the one that causes the error, and either delete or rename that applet. Then extract it from your Windows installation CD with the System File Checker "extract one file from disk" (you can start this one from Start/Run also, by typing "sfc" without the quotes). For the IE errors, you can try a repair install of IE, or download a newer version or Service Pack. Pick as thorough a version as you can to replace as many modules as possible, for the current installation might be corrupted]

[ps #2 ...the reason we suggest the antispyware tools is that some spyware processes try to use "Browser Helper Objects" (BHOs in the tech lingo) to grab Administrator priviledges to things they shouldn't --- and this clash causes the error]

[Magicb6076]

Well OK, Thanks for the ideas..... I went to the lavasoft website and got that program and did the system scan. It came up with many things and I deleted them. I am about to download the SpyBot Search and Destroy, to see what else I can come up with. So far the message has not come up, so I might be good...but you can never be to sure these days... I also did the search for the *.cpl and found all of those files. I opened each one of them, and they all worked very smoothly. So i didnt find any problems there. We'll just have to see what SpyBot brings up. Thanks again for the info...I'll let ya know what comes up.... Brandon

[GaryRouth]

Thanks for the update. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
. . . Gary