Windows XP forum: Browser will not launch

It seems you have access to another computer because you were able to post here, and that is good because you can download another browser setup file on it and transfer that file to the damaged system. But before that.

Which Dell machine and which XP, Home or Professional, and which SP, ie SP1, SP1a, SP2 or SP3?

1] System Restore back to when they both worked.

2] Run your anti-virus and anti-malware scanners one after the other for full scans.

3] Run the same scanners in Safe Mode. Boot the system into the Safe Mode options and select Safe Mode. To boot into the Safe Mode options, power up the system and before Windows begins to load start tapping the F8 key gently once a second until the options appear. In Safe Mode the scans may take considerably longer.

4] Restart the system and let it boot normally. Open Internet Explorer with it's "No Add-ons" option. You can find that in Start > All programs > Accessories > System Tools > "Internet Explorer (No Add-ons)".

If IE loads pages in this mode then IE is not damaged, but it looks like you have bad or corrupted Add-ons. Disable all the add-ons then restart IE in its normal mode. You can then add back an Add-on at a time to see if any is causing the problem.

I don't know AOL's browser at all but may be that has add-ons as well.

5] On another computer download the setup file for Mozilla's Firefox from http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/fx/ (The Green Button download option). Transfer that file to the damaged computer then install that browser. See if that works.

Download, install, update then run full scans with the free versions of Malwarebytes Anti-malware and SUPERAntiSpyware if you haven't already got those.

See if any of that works.

Mark