I have two problems that have come up on my laptop when booting up this morning. Everything was working perfectly yesterday and no software has been added or other changes made. Everything OK last night... switched off... booted up this morning with two problems.

No. 1: As it booted I got an IE error message – “Problem encountered with an add-on and needs to close.” The add-on identified was googletoolbar1.dll.

I disabled the add-on but still had the same problem at boot up. Also opening IE by right clicking the icon and selecting ‘Start without add-ons’ still brings up the error message. The only way to get a clean boot was by uninstalling Google Toolbar altogether.

No. 2: As I log into Gmail I get an error message saying that, “Gmail requires ActiveX controls to be enabled. Your browser seems to be IE and ActiveX seems to be disabled.” Following the advice given I have checked and confirmed that indeed ActiveX is enabled. I have tried to disable, then enable and restart the machine but still have the problem.

I cannot believe that the two problems are not connected as they both occurred at the same time.

I have tried to use the System Restore feature in XP and selected all the restore points from the previous two days and each time it reports back that no changes have been made to the system. I have also tried booting from last known good configuration by hitting F8 on boot up. Neither of these options has helped.

I would appreciate any help forum members can give to resolve this problem but please go easy as I’m not particularly PC savvy. Words of one syllable preferably.  

1. Click the 'Tools' menu at the top of your browser, and select 'Internet Options.'
2. Click the 'Security' tab at the top of the dialogue box, and set 'Medium' as the 'Security level for this zone.'
3. Click 'Custom Level' button and ensure that the following are set to 'Enabled':
        Run ActiveX controls and plug-ins
        Script ActiveX controls marked safe for scripting
        Scripting
4. Click 'OK' after these settings are enabled.
5. Click 'OK' again to save your changes.
6. Log in to Google Mail again.

If your browser was already set correctly, it's likely that you have a misconfigured system file. Here's how to reset the system file to the default settings:

1. Click the 'Start' button in Windows.
2. Select 'Run.'
3. Enter 'regsvr32 msxml3.dll' in the 'Open:' field, and click 'OK.'

After a moment, a dialogue box notifies you that the file was properly reset. Click 'OK' in the dialogue box to exit.

After making this change, please close all instances of Internet Explorer and open a new browser window to log back in to Google Mail.

Interestingly this wretched .dll file also prevented Windows Live Messenger from functioning fully too.