MIssing XP files?

I just got told that I'm missing files that windows XP needs they having been replaced by strange files, and that I need to reinstall. The only changes I've made are an addition of Adware, several weeks ago, installed Mozilla Firefox a week or so ago, and I completely removed IE a few days ago. I have noticed the quickstart icons by the start button are gone. It's been about five minutes since startup, and it hasn't crashed yet. I noticed Yahoo Messenger didn't start like it should have, but those are the only two problems so far.

Any ideas?

 

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Chances are the removal of IE did it. IE is integrated into the operating system, and is difficult to remove. If the quicklaunch is gone, right click the taskbar and click Toolbars > Quicklaunch.
If you are just missing .dll files and things like that, you might just copy them from the CD. You can also go to windowsupdate.microsoft.com and that should get you any missing files.

 

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Yahoo just turned on. I got the quick launch thing, that was good. I'll look that .dll thing up.

Is there a way to get windows to integrate Mozilla?

 

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Only by making it the default browser. Otherwise no, not in the way that IE is integrated. IE was the original Microsoft monopoly controversy. I remember when they first put it in pissed a lot of people off. And they basically won that case, because, for the most part, the other browsers make up only a tiny portion of the market nowadays.

The way that IE is integrated is that it is basically an extension of explorer. If you put an url into your explorer window it will turn into IE. It's part of the basic system. There's also no real need to uninstall it. In fact, it's useful to keep it because some sites refuse to work properly with any other browsers. In fact, I'm not sure you can use windows update with other browsers.

 

It's sickeningly apt to do popups though. I had one pop up today, it said it probably wouldn't display properly. It didn't, just showed the box. Kind of funny. They seem to come from AIM though...and I thought I did make it my default browser. Is there some Windows setting that has to be changed personally? Mozilla popped up a box, and I checked it, so it should have been good, save for the fact that pop-ups use IE.

 

You wouldn't want to do that. IE's integration with the OS is one of the reasons it's so bloody insecure, because security flaws in IE are security holes in the operating system, so exploiting them is more dangerous than it should be. Mozilla and Firefox can be made the default browser as Invert Nexus mentioned, but that's as far as it should go.

To say that popups use IE is backwards. It's the browser that uses the popups. If you use another browser and are getting popups in IE, then you have adware that is executing popups by executing IE directly. I suggest getting Ad-Aware and Spybot, and scanning with them (make sure to update both).