Lost use of XP

[John Mulkeen]

Hi,

Running a Dell with xp with sp3 and as a result of IE 8 crashing tried to
uninstall it. I now have the "The ordinal 421 could not be located in the
dynamic link library urlmon.dll"

I have attempted lots of things ( over 8 hours)- can't access system
restore, only able to use firefos through task manager.

Getting desperate to use pc now. Any ideas appreciated? I would even upgrade
to vista if I could.

thanks in advance?

 

[R. McCarty]

System Restore is unavailable ? When an uninstall fails, one thing to try
is to re-install that application. Make sure it's installed to the same path
as the original install. Once installed and working then re-try
uninstalling.

If you meant Firefox and it won't start via a shortcut your system may
be infected. If you can boot to Safe Mode with Networking I'd run one
or both of the following online scans:
http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/
http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner

In your current situation you would not want to try and upgrade to Vista.
Also if you've spent 8-hours on this you may have introduced so many
variables that the problem may not be fixable without a fresh install.

 

[Eric]

Hi,

Running a Dell with xp with sp3 and as a result of IE 8 crashing tried to
uninstall it. I now have the "The ordinal 421 could not be located in the
dynamic link library urlmon.dll"

I have attempted lots of things ( over 8 hours)- can't access system
restore, only able to use firefos through task manager.

Getting desperate to use pc now. Any ideas appreciated? I would even upgrade
to vista if I could.

thanks in advance?

Try the first boot-CDs remedy provided on this page:

http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/Recovering_Windows_XP_How_to_create_a_boot_Windows_XP_CD_DVD.htm

Eric,
PC Buyer Beware!
http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/

 

[Daave]

Hi,

Running a Dell with xp with sp3 and as a result of IE 8 crashing
tried to uninstall it.

What does "it" refer to -- SP3 or IE8?

 

[John Mulkeen]

Eric, Many thanks, tried this successfully but after another three hours
still have the same error. John

 

[John Mulkeen]

R, fairly sure no infection. Managed to run spybot and all clear. Unable to
run the two scans you mentioned..keep getting errors. And can,t access
internet in safe mode. Strange though I can launch firefox through normal
mode.

Anyway....thanks for your help

 

[John Mulkeen]

Hi Daave, was trying to remove IE8. a quick google of this shows a known
problem. I think sp3 should have been removed first.

 

[John Mulkeen]

By the way, I have two hard drives on this dell ( c + d) Does anyone know if
I backed everything up to the d drive could I do a fresh install to c drive
and assume that d drive will be untouched?

thanks, again

 

[Jose]

Hi,

Running a Dell with xp with sp3 and as a result of IE 8 crashing tried to
uninstall it. I now have the "The ordinal 421 could not be located in the
dynamic link library urlmon.dll"

I have attempted lots of things ( over 8 hours)- can't access system
restore, only able to use firefos through task manager.

Getting desperate to use pc now. Any ideas appreciated? I would even upgrade
to vista if I could.

thanks in advance?

I did a little reading and one person was trying to install IE8 and it
failed or aborted or something...

So I think he tried to uninststall IE8 and then IE7 would not work
(with that error) so he ended up uninstalling IE7 (you have Firefox
though).

He got into Task Manager and claims the following fixed him up:

Start a new task:

C:\WINDOWS\ie7\spuninst\spuninst.exe

This uninstall replaced the urlmon.dll file and solved the issue, then
I had to re-install the IE7.

You might try reregisitering the DLL:

regsvr32 urlmon.dll

There are plenty of Google results if you search for this error.

 

[R. McCarty]

Possibly, You have to be extra careful on formatting the existing C: volume.
If done incorrectly, you might end up loosing the data.

For me a magnetic drive based backup is never sufficient. I would take the
time to burn the personal data to CD/DVD disk(s) & verify them after the
burn to make sure the data is accessible.

 

[Lem]

For me a magnetic drive based backup is never sufficient. I would take the
time to burn the personal data to CD/DVD disk(s) & verify them after the
burn to make sure the data is accessible.

And if you're concerned about long term data retention, you probably
ought to copy CDs every couple of years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-R#Expected_lifespan
--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

By the way, I have two hard drives on this dell ( c + d) Does anyone know if
I backed everything up to the d drive could I do a fresh install to c drive
and assume that d drive will be untouched?

Several points:

1. If you do the install properly, yes, D: will be untouched. If you
screw up, everything on D: can be wiped out. Be extremely careful.

2. If D: and C: are partitions on a single drive rather than two
physical drives, the chances of your screwing up are increased.

3. If D: is a partition that came with the computer, it may well be a
partition containing the restore data for Windows. If so, it does not
have room for a backup.

4. If none of the above is a problem, any data that you save on D:
will be good and will be useful. However if you are also planning on
saving installed programs there, be aware that, with very few
exceptions, backed-up programs are useless and will not run after you
reinstall Windows. That's because all the registry entries and
ancillary files that they need will be gone.

 

[R. McCarty]

An excellent point. Optical disks aren't permanent.

 

[Daave]

Hi Daave, was trying to remove IE8. a quick google of this shows a
known problem. I think sp3 should have been removed first.

Best paractice is to have SP3 installed before upgrading IE6 (to either
IE7 or IE8). In that case, IE8 *should* be removed first (not SP3).

In what order did you install Service Pack upgrades and IE upgrades?

 

[Daave]

Hi,

Running a Dell with xp with sp3 and as a result of IE 8 crashing
tried to uninstall it. I now have the "The ordinal 421 could not be
located in the dynamic link library urlmon.dll"

I have attempted lots of things ( over 8 hours)- can't access system
restore, only able to use firefos through task manager.

Getting desperate to use pc now. Any ideas appreciated? I would even
upgrade to vista if I could.

Upgrade to Vista? I don't think so. Besides, you would only want to
upgrade to Vista if XP was stable.

I would recommend System Restore. Often, certain programs interfere with
it from running (sounds like your case). To learn more, see:

http://bertk.mvps.org/html/srfail.html

http://bertk.mvps.org/html/symantecdoc1.html

Try using System Restore in Safe Mode. If that doesn't work, try it in
Safe Mode with Command Prompt:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304449

If still no joy, post back and I'm sure someone will instruct you in how
to perform a manual System Restore.

Do you have a Windows XP installation CD?

If you are able to successfully revert to an earlier restore point, then
we can tackle your IE8 issue.

And once you solve this problem (which *might* entail a Clean Install.
but let's hope not), you really should consider regularly imaging or
cloning your hard drive so you will never be in this sort of pickle
again.