lost IE and Outllook access

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hello Avast,
in a windows xp professional system -
After just installed update for the avast home edition and rebooted - no longer able to open internet explorer 6.0 or outlook 2003. luckily had foxfire browser and thunderbird mail app but unable to import to mozilla programs from Microsoft apps. - major bummer! here are the ms app error messages when trying to open them…
for IE :
16 bit ms-dos subsystem
C;\progra~1\intern~1\iexplorer.exe
volume.inf. an installable virtual device driver failed dll initialization . chose close to terminate the application

and for outlook :
Microsoft office outlook
Cannot start microsoft office outlook. unable to open the outlook window. the set of folders could not be opened. the service is not available. contact your administrator if this condition persists.

tried to uninstall and reinstall AV as well as repair offending apps with no change. any ideas on how to recover the use of the damaged apps?

Have recommended avast to many clients - first time ever having a problem! Outstanding AV but this one went down in a big way! - I suspect the problem is more than an avast AV issue so if there are no other known crash issues with the latest update then you may delete this post - I will not be offended.

Regards, &
Thanks - Scottvh

2

Never heard of such a problem… are you sure you didn’t install/uninstall anything else?

3

This sounds as is describbed, a corrupt or missing dll file, if you can identify it then it could be possible to repair.

Have you tried doing a repair of IE or Outlook, or reinstalling them? If you reinstall IE/Outlook you will have to get a vist windows.update to get the security/critical updates.

HTH David