Win ME Explorer problems

[A4Ever]

Have a problem:

My windows explorer crashes on me all the time (I mean the file viewing tool). Explorer had caused an error in (unknown). Makes it a bitch to look at the files. Opera seems to be able to display them.

So I decided to reinstall Win ME, but without formatting, to save my files. After the installation, I needed to upgrade to Internet Explorer 6 (windows update, you know), but that installation keeps failing. Says it can not install. Rebooted ten times, retried, etc... Nothing works. Oh yeah, the windows explorer still crashes.

So now I have an unupgradable IE 5.5 and a crashing windows explorer.

I know what you gonna say: get XP, get Linux,... I KNOW! But for now, I would just like to fix it in the shortest possible time, with format/reinstall being the very last option, since I have exams for the moment.

Detail: when I press ctrl alt del, and I try to shut down the running processes, some stuff does not respond, like loadqm. Windows tells me it is not responding, and then I need to reafirm: yes, shut it down. Then sometimes it does.

Any help is welcome.

Edit: oh yeah, I managed to generate the same error on win 98 on another computer... could it be Spybot? It seems to be the only mutual program for the 2 PC's. Maybe those immunity options? I deinstalled them, but I can't find the ones protecting the homepage... where are those options?? Help.

Edit 2: Spybot seems to be doing no harm at all. In fact, version 1.3 gave me this information:

Error during check!: Xabot (Ungültiger Datentyp für '') ()


DSO Exploit: Data source object exploit (Registry change, nothing done)
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Zones\0\1004!=W=3

Spybot then claims he fixed the problem, but in a scan just a few minutes later, he finds the same errors again. Poor little program, I really don't blame him, but I would like to get things fixed.

Can anyone with computer knowledge tell me what this is and what to do?

Side question: how did this happen?? I'm not a porn fanatic, I don't use file sharing programs, I have an up to date virus scanner, a firewall and I never open attachments of which I'm not sure where they've been.

Thanks!

 

[Stryder]

I had a look through a few sites on your problem, all seem to have the same problem and no real fix. Apparently its a Zone Exploit that microsoft is suppose to have patched in IE6.0, however since your having problems upgrading to IE6.0 then thats why the exploit remains.

The usual way it works is like this:
Some viruses openly probe systems on the internet for exploitable unpatch systems, if they find one they attempt to not just impregnate the system with a virus but also stop the user from updating their system through update downloads.

I would suggest first getting a software firewall up, before you start attempting to update. Firewall's are useful for blocking the ports that the viruses tend to use for communicating with your system, then try and do an update. (You might have to make rulesets for the update to be allowed).

You should find you can download it without any of the problems, and perhaps even install it without problems too.

Also you might want to make sure that your system isn't running anything in the background thats re-inserting regkeys, you'll have to hunt down whats suppose to be run. Since ME doesn't have a comprehendsive task manager (not saying that later version of windows are impecable either), you will more than likely either need to use MSCONFIG or a program like http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml to find out if the system is running anything it shouldn't be running.

Lastly, If you continue having problems my next suggestion would be to check your RAM, RAM can cause malfunctioning installations through CRC errors.
I once had a system with bad RAM it meant that every time I attempted to reinstall the operating system (which was a lot of times when I didn't know what the fault was) it would error the pathnames, C:/windows became C:/winfows because of a RAM error, which meant part way through install half the modules didn't work, so windows was constantly blue screening.

I replaced the RAM (put new sticks in) and when I installed windows again, their was no Memory faults, so it loaded without errors and didn't have the Blue screens. (infact IE and Updates were one of the problems with bad RAM, as once the unstable OS was loaded the Updates kept failing).

Hope thats of help.

 

[A4Ever]

Damn, I hope I don't have a hardware problem...

I stopped the deo exploit by using a program called deostop2.exe. It is a fix for the problem under IE 5.5.

Spybot doesn't detect it anymore. But still gives the error I described with Xabot. I can't find much information on it.

I use spybot's advanced settings to shut out all the unnecessary processes. Computer is running on minimal processes now.

I also have a software firewall: zonealarm.

No viruses are being detected by housecall nor mcaffee (updated defs).

Windows explorer crashes and crashes... not with every boot, but most of the time.

The IE update won't install. Tells me to try again over and over again.

I can't dive into the registry and repair that key I mentioned?