When I click a website link within an email Internet Explorer opens and a message appears saying “Buffer overrun detected. C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.RXE” and then Internet Explorer closes down. In an attempt to fix this problem I updated Internet Explorer but now I am unable to access Internet Explorer at all as the same message appears all the time. How can I fix this problem? The computer is running Windows XP.

This problem often occurs when there is an incompatible add-on installed within Internet Explorer or your computer has become infected with malware (such as adware or spyware). Therefore, in the first instance we should scan the computer to ensure that no malware is currently resident on the machine which could be causing this problem. In order to complete this process you will need to download some software from the internet. This could present a problem in your situation since Internet Explorer will not open. If you have a different web browser on the computer (such as Mozilla Firefox) try downloading the required programs using the different browser, which should hopefully be unaffected by the issue. However, if you do not have an alternative browser then you may need to download these utilities on a different computer or ask a friend to download the programs and then copy to a CD or USB drive so that they can be transferred to your computer.

In any case, once you have found a computer which is able to download the programs you need to obtain Ad-Aware Free (www.lavasoft.com), Spybot Search & Destroy (www.safer-networking.org), and Windows Defender (www.microsoft.com/downloads). Between these three utilities they should be able to detect and remove most of the malware and other nasties which may be residing on the computer. Once you have downloaded each of these utilities, install them one at a time on your computer and after each utility has been installed, scan your computer using that utility. If any threats are found on the computer then you should review and (in most cases, barring any mitigating circumstances) allow the utility to remove the threat from the computer. I would also suggest that once you have completed one pass of scanning that you restart the computer and then run another scan, just in case any of the threats return after a restart. Finally, once you have finished using all three utilities to scan the computer you should complete a full scan using the antivirus scanner on your computer. Make sure that you also update the antivirus scanner with the latest virus definition files. You should be able to do this through the update interface within the antivirus software. If you currently do not have any antivirus software on your computer then I suggest you install antivirus as soon as possible. For a free antivirus solution, AVG Free (www.avg.com.au) could be a good solution for your needs. Alternatively, Microsoft has recently released a free antivirus product called Microsoft Security Essentials (www.microsoft.com/security_essentials) which may also be useful for your needs. Whilst AVG Free and Microsoft Security Essentials are sound virus scanning products, your needs may require a more advanced antivirus product. In this case, a good product worth investigating is ESET NOD32 antivirus (www.eset.com.au). Once you have completed all the procedures for malware and virus scanning, check whether you can successfully open Internet Explorer.

Should you find that scanning and removing malware from your computer does not resolve the issue, then the problem may be due to a legitimate add-on within Internet Explorer that is causing problems for the browser (thus the reason that it was not detected during the prior malware scans). Therefore, we will next try disabling add-ons within Internet Explorer to see whether this resolves the problem. Go to the “Start” menu > “Control Panel”. In the Control Panel window, open the “Internet Options” control panel (you may need to first select the “Network and Internet Connections” category). The Internet Options window should appear, which allows you to modify the settings for Internet Explorer. Click the “Programs” tab and then the “Manage add-ons” button. This will open the Manage Add-ons window, allowing you to enable and disable Internet Explorer add-ons. Write down all the add-ons which are currently enabled within Internet Explorer. You will be able to determine which add-ons are enabled as the “Status” column for that add-on will be listed as “Enabled”. Once you have written a list of all add-ons which are enabled, select each add-on and click the “Disable” button in the bottom right-hand corner of the window. At the end of this process all Internet Explorer add-ons should be disabled. At this point, close the Manage Add-ons and Internet Options windows. Restart the computer, just to ensure that any add-ons which may have run will definitely be stopped on the next startup.

Once the computer has restarted try opening Internet Explorer. Should this work, then one of the add-ons, which has now been disabled, was causing the problem. In this situation, it will be a case of trial and error to determine exactly which add-on is the problem. Close Internet Explorer, then go back into the Internet Options and open the Manage Add-ons window. Using the list which you recorded, of previously enabled add-ons, re-enable one of the add-ons. Once this has been done, close the window and then try re-opening Internet Explorer. Should that work, repeat the same procedure but enable another add-on. Keep repeating this procedure until Internet Explorer will not open, at which time you have determined that the most recently enabled add-on is the one causing the problem. Having found the add-on causing the problem you should leave that add-on disabled, so that you can use Internet Explorer. If this add-on provides functionality which you require then you may need to do some additional searching around to see whether anyone else has encountered this issue, and has a resolution, or whether an updated version of the add-on is available which fixes the problem.

In the event that the add-on does not provide important functionality then you could consider removing the add-on all together. Once you know the name of the add-on, it may be listed in the “Add or Remove Programs” control panel, allowing you to easily uninstall the add-on from Internet Explorer. However, if the add-on is part of another program then you may not be able to easily remove the Internet Explorer add-on without uninstalling the entire program. In this case, or should the add-on not be listed in the Add or Remove Programs control panel, you should be able to just leave the add-on disabled in Internet Explorer.

If you reach this stage and all the previous procedures have not fixed the problem, one last procedure remains to resolve this problem. You could try running the System File Checker. This will scan all the Windows system files for any missing or corrupt files, and replace these with known good copies. To run the System File Checker (SFC) utility, go to the “Start” menu > “Run” and type “sfc /scannow” (without the quotes) and click OK. The SFC utility will commence operation. Make sure you have the Windows XP CD handy, as you may be prompted for that CD during the SFC process should a file need to be copied from the CD. Once the SFC utility has finished it will exit silently with no user feedback. At this point try restarting the computer and see whether the problem has been fixed.

Should all else fail, there are two remaining options. You could use a different web browser, such as Mozilla Firefox (www.mozilla.com) negating the need for Internet Explorer. However, this is not a long-term solution as some things specifically require Internet Explorer. Most importantly, you need Internet Explorer to use Windows Update in order to keep Windows up-to-date with the latest security patches and fixes. Therefore, if you reach this point and the problem continues then your best option is to backup all important data you wish to keep, reformat the hard drive and complete a clean reinstallation of Windows. Make sure that you backup all data you wish to keep before embarking on this process, as all data will be lost during a format of the hard drive and clean reinstallation of Windows.