Ellwood said:
It's been so long since I've seen one I kind of forget the fix.
Maybe three weeks ago or so Windows downloaded and installed
16 upgrades.
The very first thing I noticed was the next time I booted up the Dell
Studio XPS tower I've been happily running for years now, the Windows 7
"Welcome" screen blinked at me. Came on screen, screen went black for
a beat, then came on screen again. "Huh, I thought, never saw that before".
Then came the Protection Exception windows at me; every now and then
Windows Internet Explorer flashes a little window saying that an
instruction
address fell outside the range allowed.
I've run all kinds of disk cleaners, driver update progs, everything I
can think of.
What can I do to stop these alarm windows from flashing at me?
Uninstall and the reinstall Windows Internet Explorer? I don't even
think I'd
know how to start. Once you lose your browser completely, how do you
navigate to a site to grab a replacement? HELP!!!!!
TIA
Simple. Here is a way to bootstrap a browser, when your current browser
is broken. Of course, this is cheating, and not fixing your original problem.
It uses FTP protocol, still supported in Command Prompt.
Normally, when you download Firefox, it comes from a mirror server, to
reduce the loading on the Mozilla server. You would not normally go here
for file access, but in an emergency, there is little to figure out.
This is the main server, currently blocked. I was denied access.
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/21.0/win32/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%2021.0.exe
This is a release server, with a path much similar. I use this
in the following example of how to use FTP.
ftp://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/21.0/win32/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%2021.0.exe
*******
Go to start, type "cmd" and open a command prompt window. A
black window should open, looking like MSDOS.
Type the following (using the above as a prototype of a URL):
c:
cd \
cd Downloads <---- Adjust according to where your downloads are
normally stored. I'm using C:\Downloads ,
but you might also use users\yourusername\Downloads.
ftp releases.mozilla.org <---- This starts the login to the mozilla server
anonymous <---- Username "anonymous"
(e-mail address removed) <---- Anonymous login, dream something up, doesn't matter
This is for their logs, as to who logged in.
cd /pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/21.0/win32/en-US/
dir <---- lists available files, note the name
binary
get "Firefox Setup 21.0.exe" <--- Place double quotes around file name, due to spaces
The download will now take a minute or two.
quit
You can now close the Command Prompt window.
Now, go to your download directory, and there should be a 21MB file to execute
and install the new browser.
In FTP, you can navigate with the cd command. "cd .." goes up a level.
For example, you could find your country-specific download by doing
cd /pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases
dir <--- note all the release numbers. Pick 21.0
cd 21.0
dir <--- note all OS options
cd win32 <--- (I don't think they have 64 bit ones...)
dir <--- note all country options
cd en-US
cd .. <--- oops, I made a mistake, go up one level
cd en-GB <--- OK, now I'm in the GB one.
dir <--- Note the file name
binary <--- binary mode transfer is for transparency
get ...
*******
You could review all the Windows Updates installed, their dates, and
back out all the ones on a particular date. Maybe that would make
the problem go away.
You could use System Restore, and restore the computer to a previous date.
Windows Update should set a restore point, before doing a batch of updates.
This is not without side effects though. If a lot of time has passed,
you could lose some other stuff by using System Restore and a restore point.
You could reinstall the OS (Repair install, Clean install etc).
And so on.
*******
A flashing monitor screen (goes to black and comes back), can be
a sign of a video driver problem.
But you're getting faults in IE, so it's probably not that.
I would try running IE with add-ons turned off, the equivalent
of a Safe Mode for IE. They list a command line invocation here,
don't know if all version support this.
http://www.addictivetips.com/window...irefox-and-internet-explorer-without-add-ons/
iexplore -extoff
Then see if Internet Explorer is still throwing exceptions. It
could be that some add-on you're running, disagrees with a
patch made to Internet Explorer.
I've had "weirdness" on my WinXP machine like this, that
I was never able to track down. Exceptions thrown in IE.
Looked at add-ons, and because I don't use IE all that much
on this machine, there weren't any of note. Eventually, the
problem disappeared on its own. Maybe it was the Repair
install I did a year ago, that fixed it ? But all the same
Windows Updates would have been applied to it.
Paul
