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General discussion

Explorer.exe will not work, or something wrong

Oct 3, 2010 1:59PM PDT

I was trying to install a visual style and all went fine.
I changed all the browseui.dll files, and all that, switching users and logging on my test account. (Test account was to see if any problems were present).
Finally, I came across changing the explorer.exe file, however I did not heed the warnings(A fool I was), and I tried to rename it to explorer_original.exe, and it didn't work.
Now I moved it to "MyDocuments" temporarily, however no changes has been made.
Then, I switched users and logged on my test account. To my demise, an error message has popped up saying "A toolbar cannot be made", or something close to that. Subsequently, I cannot open Firefox, or any application for that matter, and my start menu won't open up.

Now here comes my question. How do I fix this?
I'm pointing my fingers at explorer.exe because it *possibly* prompted the error to pop up.

My only haven is my real account, but if I log off, I think my computer is just useless until I get it fixed.OS is Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit.


To those who want to read the instructions I followed


Quote:
=================
Step 3 (Optional)
=================

*** WARNING! *** This optional step can break your OS, so _ALWAYS_ make a backup/system restore checkpoint before proceeding.
Also, I recommend turning off your AV or anti-malware protection temporaily. The operation should only take a few minutes.
The reason I recommend doing this is because my Nortan AV 2009's Antispyware and Advanced Protection immediately replaced the modified files with the proper one, but disabling it temporarily for the operation and re-enabling it allowed the mods to stay.

--

To make this quick and easy, I'm going to point you over to download a quick "Take Ownership to Right-Click Menu" tweak: Add "Take Ownership" to Explorer Right-Click Menu in Win 7 or Vista - How-To Geek
* If you don't want to install that, then I will just assume that you understand how to take ownership of files, manage permissions and such.


1. Navigate to <C:\Windows\> and Right-Click the Explorer.exe file. Select "Take Ownership" in the Right-Click menu.
2. Now rename the file to "explorer_original.exe"
3. Then Copy & Paste my modified explorer.exe into <C:\Windows\>

The rest of the resource files reside in <C:\Windows\System32>, so follow the steps above for the other files, but paste them into <C:\Windows\System32>, instead.

Log-out and Log-in out of your account to see the changes take effect.


Thanks for trying my theme out!
Apologies for grammar or etc.

Discussion is locked

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Sorry double post.
Oct 3, 2010 2:04PM PDT

Sorry for double post but.... I can't find the edit function.
Silly me, I disabled system restore.

- Collapse -
I don't see your double post
Oct 3, 2010 8:58PM PDT

and as these forums don't have an 'Edit' function once a post has been submitted, (it may be added later), we usually Preview before posting. Then we can edit to correct any errors.

Back to your problem. All I can say is, Ouch!

Changing the Windows GUI is always problematical and risky. I remember trying this in Win 95, and ended up having to reinstall Windows. I know things have moved on since then, but Microsoft have never really made the GUI customisable like that.

So what to do now?

I noticed in those instructions that it was recommended to "make a backup/system restore checkpoint before proceeding." Did you do that? If not, the difficulties mount up.

If you did, then I doubt you can roll back using System Restore whilst in the Test Account, so you may have to bite the bullet and login back in to your main Admin capable account and do it from there.

Ohh. I have just seen in your 2nd post. You disabled System Restore.

I think you have to see whether your main Admin account is still working. If not;

Other than a repair install from the Vista setup CD I think your best bet is to boot up into Safe Mode and try the "Last known good configuration" option. That attempts to load Vista from the backup registry. That option will ask which account to log into and again I would choose your main Admin capable account.

Mark