help with failed reinstall of IE11 browser with win 7

[keakar]

my nieces computer has been acting up with the touchpad not being very responsive and it seams that IE11 was having issues.

chrome could go online with no problems but IE couldnt seam to connect to the same websites or would takes a full 2 solid minutes to do so. I ran all the c cleaner registry cleaner and spyware remover as well as disk and internet option cleaners and nothing changed with the browser but the touchpad seamed to work better even though it still seamed to not want respond at times and you had to search for different finger spots to get a response.

at this point I figured it has to be a borked IE install so I just used control panel to uninstall IE11 then I went to Microsoft to reinstall IE11 but it wont reinstall, it goes through the full installation and at the end it has installation failed prompt and check error report but there is no report saying why, just a blank report page.

she has chrome and firefox working but I need to figure out why I cant reinstall the original Microsoft browser on this thing.

she is running win 7 ultimate 32 bit version and I tried to reinstall the 32 bit IE11 through Microsoft downloads with no success

so just to be clear, what i am thinking (guessing) happened is that windows did not roll back to an earlier version, but I think it deleted/uninstalled all its browser files so it now has no browser files at all installed and IE11 is designed to be an update browser and not a stand alone browser to be installed over nothing.

 

[little cat]

i would do virus scan : Zone Alarm Free , Panda AV Free . I guess Malwarebytes Antimalware was already used ?!

I use Chrome on a 4GB laptop ( Windows 10 64bit) . 32 bit Windiws has a limit of 4GB RAM , so Chrome is a better choice . It uses less memory than IE11

 

[keakar]

she keeps secrets so I think she got a virus or something but she wont say but I don't know how to "repair" windows 7 without losing all her school stuff in the process.

i suspect she did have a virus and she got rid of it using system restore but things are still somewhat messed up after, so im thinking the antivirus must have dumped some corrupted windows files in the process of blocking the virus. but im doing a lot of blind guessing here.

while she is out partying, im sneaking into her room and see if I can sort things out for her but now im in deep with this "IE is gone and I cant reinstall it" situation

she has tons of school crap on it and programs for school but I heard if I upgrade to win 10, it does the upgrade without messing with other installed software and your files.

I just don't know if this is really true or not and I need absolute assurance none of her school software or files will be effected before I even think about telling it to upgrade to win 10.

im guessing all problems will be sorted out with windows 10 after that, I hope

trouble is I heard you only keep your files and settings in the upgrade and not any installed software, and then I also heard you do keep "most" installed software and google seams to find equal amounts of both of these opinions

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Windows 10 upgrade doesn't lose anything unless something bad happens (e.g. power loss)

If she did a system restore, the garbage on her computer is still there and and will be there after Windows 10 upgrade too. If it were me, I'd be recommending/performing a clean OS install. Microsoft is notorious for making their built in software nigh impossible to repair.

 

[Frick]

Backup school stuff, wipe. If all else fails.

You reallyshould have backups anyway, even more so if it's an HDD in it. It just takes one droo and it's all gone.

 

[little cat]

she keeps secrets so I think she got a virus or something but she wont say but I don't know how to "repair" windows without losing her school stuff.

i suspect she did have a virus and she got rid of it but things are still somewhat messed up after, so while she is out partying, im trying to sneek in her room and see if I can sort things out for her but now im in deep with this "IE is gone and I cant reinstall it" situation

she has tons of school crap on it and programs for school so if I upgrade to win 10 im guessing all will be sorted out with windows after that but I need absolute assurance none of her school software or files will be effected

The viruses like to infect executable files . Its the easiest way to replicate . The documents are less likely to be affected . Regardless , what has been lost is lost . As for Windows 10 , I wouldnt recommend installing Windows 10 on a computer with 3GB RAM or less .

 

[keakar]

Windows 10 upgrade doesn't lose anything unless something bad happens (e.g. power loss)

If she did a system restore, the garbage on her computer is still there and and will be there after Windows 10 upgrade too. If it were me, I'd be recommending/performing a clean OS install. Microsoft is notorious for making their built in software nigh impossible to repair.

cant say for sure but just going by clues I pick up

when its a girl in early 30's who doesn't want to tell you anything about anything, its very hard so I can only go by what I discover "after the fact"

The viruses like to infect executable files . Its the easiest way to replicate . The documents are less likely to be affected . Regardless , what has been lost is lost . As for Windows 10 , I wouldnt recommend installing Windows 10 on a computer with 3GB RAM or less .

I just upgraded her to a P9500 cpu and 4gb ram so I think she would be ok with win 10 even though a brand new clean install of win 7 would be my first choice. I just don't know about her school software crap, some of that stuff you buy "per install" and its not cheap but more importantly she doesn't understand it either but feels its "tethered" to her school records "at the school" so im not sure if you lose it, if that means you also lose credit for that semesters work ??????????

and its hard to get anything out of her beyond over emotional reaction to any discussion involving the school stuff, its like talking about pms or something

Backup school stuff, wipe. If all else fails.

You really should have backups anyway, even more so if it's an HDD in it. It just takes one drop and it's all gone.

yep, preaching to the choir here, I totally agree but its not my computer or my files lol.

when I upgraded her computer she had 315gb of old music files she didn't want or even knew she had and that was on a 320gb hard drive, it literally had between zero and 1gb hdd space to do anything. just deleting that crap made her computer come back to life from running slow like it was 20 years old computer.

 

[little cat]

sfc /scannow could repair Windows files

http://www.howtogeek.com/222532/how...-system-files-with-the-sfc-and-dism-commands/

 

[keakar]

sfc /scannow could repair Windows files

http://www.howtogeek.com/222532/how...-system-files-with-the-sfc-and-dism-commands/

that looks very similar to the windows update repair tool, I almost said I already had it, until I saw the file sizes were very different.

I downloaded both 32 and 64 bit versions and they will come in handy im sure, thanks

for now she just came back and is in a real bitchy mood so I didn't even bother telling her anything about it. i'll just let her find out tomorrow and act like I know nothing about it, im sure she will just think its that virus causing problems again. I heard her whispering about a computer virus Thursday when she was caught banging on the touchpad and cursing because it wouldn't work but when I asked about it she denied anything was wrong at that time lol.

so I guess now I will have to wait for her to come ask me to fix it after she gets over it.

 

[Frick]

Ask her about backups.

 

[rtwjunkie]

When I was on W7, I had a similar problem. I had uninstalled IE11, because a reset of IE did not work.

I found out it caused major problems trying to reinstall it. IE is heavily tied into the OS. What I ended up having to do was a freah install of W7. I know that's not what you want to hear, but it's the safest route.

 

[jsfitz54]

Try running a full scan (custom) with MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials).
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-essentials-download
The recovery partition is most likely infected and a reinstall will most likely reinstall the malware again.
A full wipe may not work if the recovery partition is damaged.
Were backup disks made?

 

[keakar]

She keeps secrets! And, You are sneaking into your 30 year old niece's room... sounds, well, sounds fishy.
I don't know about the others, here; but, you are beginning to sound like the creepy uncle.

only if that is where you mind is, the only one sounding creepy here is you

Next Time you get a chance put this on her Pc as wall paper ( or something similar )

Scare the Poo out of her and maybe your get some answers when she asks you to sort it out proper

lol, no I would never do that or tamper with her computer. all I do is I just try to run simple diagnostics, system restore, antivirus, antispyware, anti malware stuff and solve problems for her that way if I can. I thought she just had spyware or something and then I found the IE11 wasn't working right and things went south from there.

When I was on W7, I had a similar problem. I had uninstalled IE11, because a reset of IE did not work.

I found out it caused major problems trying to reinstall it. IE is heavily tied into the OS. What I ended up having to do was a fresh install of W7. I know that's not what you want to hear, but it's the safest route.

I think you are right, for now, without IE11, the computer "seams" to be working better now and she mainly uses chrome anyway so I will just have to wait for her to need IE for something to the point of asking for help but I know that by that time, it may be at the point it may be too late to save everything. I just don't understand why it would uninstall IE11 if it did not have an earlier version of IE to roll back to such as the old IE8 at the very least? I mean if there is no previous version to roll back to, it should not give you any uninstall option, just like with any other "critical" windows components.

Try running a full scan (custom) with MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials).
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-essentials-download
The recovery partition is most likely infected and a reinstall will most likely reinstall the malware again.
A full wipe may not work if the recovery partition is damaged.
Were backup disks made?

when I reinstall I also delete recovery partitions and reformat the complete drive to be sure its wiped clean of everything and if need be I have a serious government security level drive data wiping utility

 

[little cat]

side info :
My uncle lives in Germany . He has Kaspersky AV installed and an insurance to cover any virus hacks . Wow !

 

[jsfitz54]

she mainly uses chrome anyway

Is Chrome up to date? Old versions would hang computer. Cause it to run slow.
Newest: Version 49.0.2623.87 m

 

[keakar]

Is Chrome up to date? Old versions would hang computer. Cause it to run slow.
Newest: Version 49.0.2623.87 m

I will have to ask her if she knows which version she has

side info :
My uncle lives in Germany . He has Kaspersky AV installed and an insurance to cover any virus hacks . Wow !

so Kaspersky AV insures you against getting viruses? that's unusual but im sure it doesn't cover you against your own mistakes clicking on the wrong stuff, that would seam a bit much if they did.

still if they back up their software with insurance, it must be good.

 

[rtwjunkie]

I mean if there is no previous version to roll back to, it should not give you any uninstall option, just like with any other "critical" windows components.

I've got to agree with you there. Cimpletely uninstalling IE should not be an option.

 

[little cat]

I will have to ask her if she knows which version she has



so Kaspersky AV insures you against getting viruses? that's unusual but im sure it doesn't cover you against your own mistakes clicking on the wrong stuff, that would seam a bit much if they did.

still if they back up their software with insurance, it must be good.

The insurance company is not Kaspersky . The insurance contract is valid as long as the PC is protected by a strong AV program within 1 year .

 

[dorsetknob]

I've got to agree with you there. Cimpletely uninstalling IE should not be an option.

Sorry but your wrong there
EU Anti competitive law made Microsuck unbundle IE ( any Version ) so Other Browsers can be installed.
Therefore Microsuck has to allow the Complete uninstall ( it Cannot Be Embedded to such a degree that it cannot be removed)
That's the Rules For the EU market and Presumably for all its markets
Wether its wise to remove it completely is another matter for Debate

 

[bogmali]

Closing this before the the usual trolls further derail this thread. Rest assured that I have my eye on you all (you know who you are).