When Internet Explorer fails, troubleshooting can be difficult. Because it is well integrated with the operating system, it is difficult to uninstall and reinstall.
Today, one machine kept displaying the following error:
iexplore.exe – Application Error
The instruction at “0x30cb0a4f” referenced memory at “0x00000000”. The memory could not be “written”. Click on OK to terminate the program.
While I was tempted to simply upgrade the user to IE7, I decided to first try Microsoft’s System File Checker.
System File Checker scans all protected files to verify their versions. If System File Checker discovers that a protected file has been overwritten, it retrieves the correct version of the file from the cache folder (%Systemroot%\System32\Dllcache) or the Windows installation source files, and then replaces the incorrect file.
To run the system file checker, press Start, Run, and then type in SFC followed by its options.
The most common usage of SFC are:
- sfc /scannow
- sfc /scanonce
- sfc /scanboot
Once SFC is done, reboot. In my case, SFC didn’t fix the unwanted iexplore.exe error I was receiving. So I installed IE7 beta and then uninstalled IE7 beta, which did solve the problem.