IE 7.0 won't boot

I had spybot giving me some registry signals earlier today, something that would give me a chance to accept or deny the value. I denied in every case because I wasn't doing anything that required changing my registry. I did get an AVG screen that indicated I had a virus but I believe AVG caught the virus and it was resolved. I ran Malwarebytes and one bad file was detected:

Registry Keys Infected:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\XML (Trojan.FakeAlert) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully. Files Infected:
C:\WINDOWS\Tasks\{35DC3473-A719-4d14-B7C1-FD326CA84A0C}.job (Trojan.Downloader) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.

After all that I couldn't get Internet Explorer to open anymore. And the regular options I usually see at the top (ie. File/Edit/View/History/Favorites, etc) are gone. I then tried going to Microsoft (using Mozilla which works fine) to download a new copy of IE7 for windows XP service pack 3 at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details…ckInfoContainer - and that didn't fix it.

Question: can anyone help me resolve this IE7 problem? Thanks much

Hello dconant1, It is possible that the settings for IE7 may have been altered or changed somehow, you should consider resetting the Internet Explorer settings to their defaults. Though you reinstalled IE7, this does not necessarily mean you have the defaults again automatically. To use the Reset Internet Explorer Settings feature from Control Panel, follow these steps: 1. Exit all programs, including Internet Explorer (if it is running). 2. Click Start, and then click Run. Type the following command in the Open box, and then press ENTER: inetcpl.cpl 3. Click the Advanced tab. 4. Under Reset Internet Explorer settings, click Reset. Then click Reset again. 5. When Internet Explorer finishes resetting the settings, click Close in the Reset Internet Explorer Settings dialog box. 6. Start Internet Explorer again. Hope this might help, Rich

Microsoft has actually done a decent job of gathering a bunch of fixes for common problems. See http://support.microsoft.com/fixit#tab3

checked out the Microsoft Fix link. Tried one about adding a value in the registry to get the stanssdard IE screen back, but it didn't work. When I click Alt-F the options (File, Edit, View, Etc) return on top. I can click on links in my Favorites and go straight to the sites, but cannot put those same addresses in the IE7 browser. They go nowhere. Not sure how to proceed.

And did you reset IE as suggested by Rich?

Yes I did the reset. It still didn't work. Here's what I decided to do: System Restore to yesterday. It worked. I'm good to go. Thanks for all your help.

Well, I am glad you got it going and thanks for letting us know how! But since system restore may have undone any changes that from a security standpoint, should not be undone, I recommend you run though your security sweeps again. And I recommend you upgrade to IE8 as it is much more secure than IE7.

Can I upgrade to IE8 using the XP (service pack 3) platform? I didn't think I could.

Can I upgrade to IE8 using the XP (service pack 3) platform? I didn't think I could.

Sure! Whatever gave you the idea you couldn't?

IE 8 for XP