Solved Windows Explorer will not do anything

[Mikesin]

I have a win 7 based MCE machine which I finished building in Jan this year and all was well to start with.

At some stage Explorer 11 stopped working - would not bring up search box and clicking on menus at the top left led nowhere - nothing was active.

I tried removing IE11 in windows features and reactivating - nothing. I uninstalled back to IE 9 - nothing.

Tried going back to IE11 and it never completes install - little window in top left to do with web platform customtisations spins little wheel forever.

I tried to search (start/search) for troubleshooter - search doesn't work either. Tried to get into Services to see if Windows search was running - control panel/admin tools/ Computer services - window opens but doesn't get populated with anything.

Have tried CCleaner and sfc/ scannow - all ok.

Have got Firefox and Chrome working so IE11 not working is less of a problem but the search function and not being able to properly manage the system is a problem.

My last thought is to deploy the system recovery disk I made whene I finished building but not sure if this will mean having to reinstall all the updates.

Advice and thoughts welcomed. Thanks

Mike

 

[torchwood]

Hi Mike,
sounds like the ORIGINAL install media was corrupt, where'd you get it??
So i suspect that your "repair" with the recovery disc will fail.

run this tool, copy/paste the results, if it comes back OK i'll get you a clean W7

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=52012

Roy

 

[Mikesin]

Nope - valid 64 bit install disk with licence key and when I installed it verified the licence OK - I am sure that following install/build all worked ok - I downloaded Teamviewer and AVG and used IE to access the web pages. I don't use the PC for anything other than recording UK FTA TV and my music/photo library - no emails get done and nothing else - the only reason i wanted IE to work ( and hence discovered the problem) was that I wanted watch a sports channel over the net ( I have a valid sign on) - IE would not let me search for the sports web page and that is when I realised that IE was ******. I put Firefox on via a USB stick ) as I could not get there via IE but Firefox has a problem with the well known sports channel - I put Chrome on today using Firefox and that does work so as I said it is just IE and the explorer functions of Win 7

Thanks for response

 

[torchwood]

Hi Mike,
Takes up to 90 days before it goes up the creek.
(hope you didnt get it of the net! should be system Builder or Retail)

If your specs are correct 32bit 2gb ram, although your saying x64 thats prob why Sky/Virgin dont load it, Sky also needs Silverlight,
Causing a huge load on the system and Explorer.exe is crashing not IE11

Roy

 

[Mikesin]

Updated my profile - used retail pack that had both 32 bit and 64 bit CDs. I remember that I had to download silverlight first time I wanted to use Sky and I had successfully watched footy on IE. Something has happened in last few weeks to break the system, possibly an update but I don't know which one - I'll have to try Sys Recovery disk I guess.
Thanks
Update - decided to do system restore - since it is a farly new build only a few restores to choose from.
Restored back to 28/02/2017 which is one after initial build - restore OK - still no explorer seach function but do now have access to admin tools and can see that win search is running - not sure if this is a change or i was too impatient before to wait for window to populate ... checked index options on control panel against my other working win7 PC - can't see any difference. No idea where to look next to resolve IE and explorer not working problem

 

[Mikesin]

Turned off UAC which allowed explorer to start working. Uninstalled IE11, re-installed with UAC off - Life is Good