Hi.  I recently upgraded my home system from Windows 2000 Pro to
Windows XP Pro SP1.  Things have been working fine since the upgrade. 
Now, all of a sudden, Internet Explorer 6 and Windows Explorer don’t
work and every time I try to load either one, I get the “Microsoft
Error Reporting” box that asks me to send a report to Microsoft –
which I have.  I have looked at the report, and much of it doesn’t
make sense to me.  It mentions “iexplorer.exe” or “explorer.exe”
(depending on which program has failed) and a handful of .dll’s –
which are always the same files for either program.  I can’t open any
kind of file browser – I can’t “open” My Computer, I can’t “explore”
My Computer, I can’t access folders with direct shortcuts I have on my
desktop.  When “explorer.exe” fails, that process disappears from the
Processes list in the Windows Task Manager box, all the desktop icons
disappear, the taskbar and the system tray disappear, and it seems
like the computer is rebuilding them.  It then reappears in the
Processes.
Every other function of the computer seems to work fine.  I can also
still use my DSL connection with Outlook.  I tried to save an
attachment from one of my emails and it WAS able to bring up a file
browser box asking me where to save the file.  But that “Save As” box
is the only type of file browser I have been able to access.
I have opened the Service screen and nothing looks horribly wrong.  I
also brought up the Event Viewer and looked at the long list of “Errors”
that it logged from these programs not loading properly.  Again, much
of it doesn’t make sense to me.  One thing does stick out in my head
though; many (but not all) of the Internet Explorer errors mention a failed/faulty
“bucket” and it gives a 7 or 8 digit number that starts with 323. 
Many of the errors in the Event Viewer mention this bucket, but they
don’t always have the same number, although they are similar.  Not all
of the error entries involve the bucket, either.  (I can’t tell you
exactly at the moment because I am writing this description at work,
as I can’t get on the WWW from home.)
I can see no reason why this has happened.  The computer was working
fine Monday morning, and it was shut down properly.  Then Monday night
is when the problem began.  There were no power surges or anything of
that nature.  I have Norton AntiVirus 2003 and it is completely
up-to-date and doesn’t detect any problem.
I have tried to reinstall Internet Explorer using the Win XP install
CD, I have tried to completely reinstall Win XP in the upgrade
fashion, and I have tried to boot directly to the XP install CD and
use the Repair Console that it talks about it, but I didn’t find that
helpful at all.  Obviously, none of these have worked.  I am
considering moving anything/everything important from my C drive to my
D drive, reformatting the disk and doing a completely clean install on
XP, but I’d REALLY REALLY like to avoid that.
I can’t think of anything else to try.  I have tried to provide as
much detail as I can to help you help me.  If you have any other
questions, please feel free to ask.  If need be, I will get the answer
to your question from home and post it here the next day from work.
My home-made system is a PIII 500, 384MB RAM, 15GB (C) & 20GB (D) HDs,
PCI NIC, PCI soundcard, AGP video card, PCI modem (not being used). 
I've searched Google Answers with the string "xp ‘explorer problem’"
and no relevant articles were returned.

I have XP and have this same problem.  Try searching for rundll32.exe
and see in your task manager has got this program running, email me if
it has at k970_eac@hotmail.com

Hello heavylee!

Based on your previous question about continuous hard drive activity,
I wonder if you might have some virus that is not commonly recognized
by virus scanners. It's also entirely possible that your primary hard
disk is experiencing some sort of physical failure.

If by some odd chance explorer.exe and iexplore.exe have actually been
corrupted, you might be able to restore them from the XP CD using the
expand.exe utility in E:\I386 - but I'm not sure whether this is
possible while XP is actually running.

Regarding greenstrike's comment about rundll32.exe - this is a
standard Windows program - you can expect it to run from time to time,
and it is not a problem.

All the best,

--seizer-ga

yeah seizers right sorry i should of explained what i ment more
clearly you see i had a virus on my XP that brought up the
Rundll32.exe file about twenty times in task manager all were
corrupted

Greenstrike-

No, rundll32.exe was not present in my Process list.


Seizer-

I have considered that the physical drive could be failing.  I used
the Windows Backup utility to backup all the important things to my D
drive, which is physically a seperate unit in case I have to replace
the C or incase I have to wipe it clean and reinstall XP.
I guess it is possible that I have a virus, but I would be suprised. 
I am careful about what sites I visit and what I download from them,
and I am very careful about opening attachments to email.  Like I
mentioned before, I have NAV 2003 updated, as well.  I know all of
these things can still be true while being infected, but I would be
surprised.
As for the expand.exe, tell me about this.  What is this designed to
do?  If I can get to a dos prompt, should I run this program from the
Install CD?  After I execute the file, does it do everything on its
own - or do I need to prompt it through?  What else would I need to do
to complete this task?

Hope to hear from you soon.

HeavyLee

Well, I am giving up.  I have decided to wipe the drive clean and
install XP over again on a fresh slate.  Thanks anyway guys!