w2w

tried that mate and even when it's in the taskbar it gives the option to maximise, but it just doesn't work

Cheers for your patience, but I have gone through every step of those processes [except the last one obviously as my problem is I cannot open IE] Same result :(

nope SP3 hasn't cleared the promblem, I'm now out of ideas. Seems strange that it only affects IE and WMP

I reinstalled SP2 this morning in the hope it would fix it. I'm now in the proces of installing SP3. I hope this sorts it Is there a way of burning the SP3 file onto a bootable CD?

I did mate and it found it. I clicked instal and it asked for my SP2 CD. I have re-installed SP2 but it's on my HDD not on a CD and that won't work

and I tried the %systemroot%\inf route and I don't seem to have an ie.inf file only a ie.PNF one

I've tried the sfc /scannow route but it keeps asking for my XP disc [that was damaged beyond repair years ago

10 mate. I tried installing 11 and re-installing 10 but still no joy My IE problem is the one that's driving me mad. If i can solve the WMP problem that will be a bonus but I can't operate without IE

First of all let me say hello as I'm new here. Here's my problem I'm running XP Home [sP2] with IE6 installed [i had IE7 but got rid as I preferred IE6] A few months ago I noticed that whem I opened anything with Windows media player, that the player would play audio tracks but the application itself would only stay in the taskbar and not open at all [minimise,maximise, restore didn't do anything] This isn't so much of a problem as I always use VLC Player but the problem is..This has now happened with Internet Explorer. It will not open, just sits in the taskbar and nothing I can do will open it. This doesn't happen with MSN or Firefox, but I get along just fine with IE6 and would rather use this It is driving me mad, can anyone help?