Explorer.exe keeps closing & occassionally reopening

Alright, so I'm logging into MSN, and all of a sudden, my taskbar and desktop disappear - so I automatically know something's wrong with explorer. I would upload a hijack this report, but I cannot download anything or execute Mozilla Firefox. I am currently only able to execute applications via task manager (I'm using IE 6), and I am losing my mind with impatience. I am very knowledgable with computers, yet, I cannot seem to locate the source of this problem. I downloaded a tool called Discovery Live or something, a Windows Live Plug-in, earlier today, and as I login, it opens an advertisement via IE. I believe there may have been some malware binded to this tool, and that could be the cause of all of this. I was looking through event viewer, and noticed a few errors/warnings around the time of this situation. I cannot provide you with anymore information at the present time, but a better understanding of the situation would be very much appreciated.

Hi nyck and welcome.

but a better understanding of the situation would be very much appreciated.

And so knowing what the errors were in Event Viewer would be nice. As well as a little about your computer - PC or Laptop, version of Windows?

Did you try a system restore? Have you scanned for malware? You say you are using IE 6 - what other security updates are you behind on?

I'm not big on Windows, I don't really care for updates. This computer is just kind of a scrap I've been programming on and such. I found a download manager on my computer and I can now download files. I have a log for my hijackthis scan. Also, I am running Windows XP Professional on a desktop.

Errors in Event Viewer:

Applications - Faulting application firefox.exe, version 1.8.20080.62306, faulting module yayvwnkc.dll, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x0005499d.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

When I try to execute Firefox:

Faulting application firefox.exe, version 1.8.20071.816, faulting module yayvwnkc.dll, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x0005499d.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Whenever I try to click within event viewer, it says log file cannot be read.

There is clearly a problem with the dll file.

See What TheTech HijackThis Log Procedures for complete instructions on running HijackThis, and the correct place to post your log. Please refer to this post so they can catch up. When the HJT analysts give you a clean bill of health, please post back here with an update.