Back in computer hell
Another day off, and another day frustrated with my computer. I have no idea what I did, but I can't get IE7 to open at all; I can't access "internet options" from the control panel, I tried reinstalling IE7 and IE8....but when I click on the icon, the cursor goes to busy for about 2 seconds, and then nothing. I have Windows XP Media Edition, SP 3.5. This wouldn't be a problem since I prefer using Opera and Firefox for browsers anyway, but my work platform runs though IE. Come Thursday, if I can't get this issue resolved, I won't be able to work. I've scanned for malware and MalwareBytes tells me I'm clean, so it's not malware blocking it.
I really don't want to have to factory reinstall for the fifth time in a year, because I lose everything that I don't have on my flash drive. (Yup...too poor for an external hard drive). Anybody have any ideas on how I can get Internet Explorer to work again? I don't have startup disks because it's a Dell, and the Windows disks are petitioned on the hard drive some place. I only know how to factory reinstall them...I don't know if it's possible to just use the petition to fix this problem, and I certainly don't have any idea how to access them (other than the factory reinstall option which is Ctrl+F11 during boot).