Everytime I click on the IE desktop icon or the IE quick launch icon the browser will not open. I can only access IE through windows explorer.

I'm running windows 98 SE and had a new hard drive fitted a couple of days ago. The repairers reinstalled windows and everything was running fine until last night.

IE was working ok before the pc was shut down, later when I came to use it again this problem occurred. I've tried reinstalling windows, I've run windows update and tried system file checker to no avail.

Occassionally a browser window will open if I click on the quick launch icon, but only whilst I am already accessing IE through windows explorer.

It's driving me mad and I can't think of anything else to try apart from reformatting the hard drive and starting again from scratch.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

When you click on IE from the start > Program Files does it take a while to load?

It won't load at all from there.

PC won't shut down into ms dos mode so I can try scanred /fix or scanreg /restore either.

I'm at a total loss as to what else to try apart from reformatting the hard drive and starting again from scratch?

Browse to the following path in Windows Explorer: "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer". Double-click IExplore.exe.

Does that run Internet Explorer properly? If it does, you could right-click that file and choose the Send To Desktop option to create a new shortcut on the desktop.

Problem is now resolved.