Kernal 32

[lazyitus]

When trying to gain access to My Documents, it wont open and I'm met with the message...

'Explorer has caused an error in KERNAL32.DLL'

I've run ad-aware and spybot with no joy.

HELP !

[BliarOut]

Look in event viewer (start > run> eventvwr) it may give a specific error number or more detailed explanation about the problem.

If it's only 'my documents', it's most likely either permissions or a file system error.

[JonRB]

Kernel32.dll (note spelling) is one of the fundamental Windows Operating System libraries.

Basically Explorer has done something that Windows doesn't like and has been closed down.

>> Edited by JonRB on Friday 25th November 22:18

[J_S_G]

Couple of things this could be. One's that something'll have got installed with mismatched DLLs - something'll be relying on a different version of a (system) file being there than the one that actually is. Another option is that it's a shonky low-level driver. And then there's... oh, hell... there's a hundred things it could be! Fixes'd be more use, right?

This is a common problem with Windows 98 & Windows Me. If you're running either of those versions, take a look here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=189952 (And then upgrade to a DECENT version of Windows!)

If you've got system restore enabled, you can probably roll your settings back a couple of weeks and fix it.

Alternatively, sticking your Windows CD in and doing a reinstall (over the top, without trashing what's already there) will probably sort things out.

If you really need access to your files (quickly), open up a command window, kill the explorer process, and copy them from the command-line to somewhere else (USB pen drive, network location, etc). Assuming it's not something truly horrific that's gone wrong Shout if you need more details on this

Depending on the encryption on it, you could take the hard drive out and attach it to another PC with a working version of Windows, too, as a last resort.

Too late and too drunk to think properly about this!