Can't type in IE 6 or OE on Win XP Home

[Steve_CA]

Could really use some help on this odd problem.

I am working with an XP Home - PC that is having some very odd problems with IE and OE. In IE I am unable to type in any text box on any page - for example I can not log in to my hotmail email account because I try to click in the user name field and nothing happens. Similar problem in OE - when I either reply to a message or create a new message I can type in the To: field but I can not access nor type in the message field.

I have searched extensively on these problems all over the Internet and the closest hint I could find (on MS's support page - but really for IE 5, not 6) was to replace the mshtmler.dll file in the windows system directory as it might be corrupt (I did this with every instance of that file I could find on the PC) - and this did not help at all. I also did the usual things such as uninstall both IE and OE and reinstall, scan for viruses with the best and brightest apps and check for all manner of spyware via adaware and spybot etc. Nothing has helped.

Other clues: I get an "Error: 96" when I go to IE help->about and I get a similar error when I start up OE and click on the Outlook Express parent folder - it gives me "Error: 30".

This PC was having hardware stability issues (now fixed) so quite likely some file or other is corrupt.

I am about to wipe the hard drive and reinstall unless someone here might be able to assist.

Thanks in advance!

-Steve

[NooNoo]

Welcome to Windrivers Steve_CA

Have you tried running sfc /scannow ?

How about in ie, tools, options, advanced and hitting the restore defaults button?

Have you tried removing ie and oe from add/remove programs (windows components) rebooting and then adding again?

There are a ton of things you could try - even doing an inplace install of xp to overwrite the current installation, but leave the software/data intact (*backup your oe store folder and my documents first!!) You will then only have to do the windows updates again.

[Steve_CA]

Thank you for the great ideas. Unfortunately I can't use sfc as this PC was purchased from an internet mom&pop which included only a restore disk with a norton ghost image on it (no Windows XP disk to get the .dll files from), and a sticker with the XP license number on it. I had already tried your next two ideas with no luck either. I can't do the install overwrite either for the same reason mentioned above. So...guess I get to wipe and re-image. Yay...

Welcome to Windrivers Steve_CA

Have you tried running sfc /scannow ?

How about in ie, tools, options, advanced and hitting the restore defaults button?

Have you tried removing ie and oe from add/remove programs (windows components) rebooting and then adding again?

There are a ton of things you could try - even doing an inplace install of xp to overwrite the current installation, but leave the software/data intact (*backup your oe store folder and my documents first!!) You will then only have to do the windows updates again.

[NooNoo]

They should give you an XP cd, you are entitled to one.... and I hope you have a licence for ghost too!!!

The dlls etc should be in a directory called i386 - you can point sfc to that to get the files.