I can’t really type what I’m feeling at the moment. Thus, instead please think of the rudest possible expletive you know, imagine you are shouting it out loud and that equates to about 10% of how annoyed I am.
I installed Internet Explorer 7 beta 2 yesterday to check out all the problems with Flash. Problems that mean Flash, video and nearly all other interactive content have to be ‘activated’ before they work. The whole thing because Microsoft lost a court case and thus had to change the way Internet Explorer works.
It is really annoying and irritating, but ways around the issue seems to be being found and I hope it won’t cause too much trouble anyway.
The Snows of Kilimanjaro hd So, having found out the problems, I thought I’d give IE7 a good go anyway. I click on the IE7 icon on my desktop. Error message. I try once more – error message again. Looked to me like Internet Explorer 7 was a real non-starter for me. Not a problem I thought. The ‘new’ beta contains an ‘uninstall’ option that allows me to remove Internet Explorer 7 and swap back down to version 6. (Obviously in reality this means just continue using Firefox 
).
I thus go to the control panel and click to uninstall Internet Explorer. I leave it running. This was at 18.10. As I type this it is 22:14 and I have wasted my entire evening ******* around with this stupid program. I had wanted to spend the limited time I’ve got working on my ContentGenerator.net programs, including an update that I want to get running asap.
What happened is this:
1. I returned to the PC to see my standard Windows background (no taskbar, no start button) with an error message saying “Explorer.exe cannot run because Normaliz.dll was not found” (or something like this). It all seemed rather odd.
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2. I rebooted, thinking perhaps the uninstall had gone slightly wrong and it might fix itself.
3. Some chance – same thing happened. Mouse works fine, keyboard works, so I manage to get the Task Manager working. From here I can run Firefox. I do a quick websearch for the issue, hardly anything appears at all – apart from one poor soul who seemed to be suffering the same.
4. I was able to run Firefox, so I thought I’d try reinstalling the IE 7 beta 2. I visit the Microsoft website and find the IE beta 2 download. It forwards me to check if my installation of Windows is genuine. Fair enough – apart from the fact the page it forwards me to is dead.
5. Luckily, I remember that I’d already downloaded the installation to my desktop and thus fiddle around through taskmanager to browse to my desktop where I’d saved it. Remember at the moment only my desktop background and thus damn error message are visible. I can run programs but each time I do I get further error messages related to IE.
6. I get the IE7 installer running, it unpacks a few files and asks me to validate my version of Windows. I click the button to do this – guess what? Yep – it forwards me to the page again that doesn’t exist. As I look a bit deeper it turns out that as my default browser is Firefox it is my fault.
7. So, I’m completely stuck. I can reboot but the desktop freezes with the error message. I try booting from safe mode – same thing, only slower. I start to consider reinstalling Windows. I really Idiocracy divx don’t want to do that though.
8. Anyway, just to be safe I decide to run an extra backup. I’ve got a special partition for simple backups – so I copy the Outlook .pst and the ‘My pictures’ folder – about the only things we actually store in the standard locations. This takes a while so I try the installation thing again.
9. While the installer is running I notice that it unpacks the files to a temporary directory on one of my partitions. Very strange. Anyway, the installation fails again, but as I look into it all the installation files are actually available in this temporary directory. Including our friend ‘normaliz.dll’. So I copy and paste that .dll into the System 32 folder and then I run explorer.exe from the Task Manager.
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10. Incredibly, the desktop then appears and it is four hours later.
My system is still messed up, but at least it is working. Plus – have a guess at this. I’m typing this using Internet Explorer 7!! I’m running it from the temporary directory where I found the lovely .dll file.
Anyway, apologies for the rant, but it is very helpful to explain what happened – even just for me. Plus, I’ve eventually staggered into a solution to the issue. No excuse for Microsoft though. I don’t mind a few problems with beta software – but to make an entire system hang due to a missing .dll file that is missing because their installer messed it up is terrible.
45 responses so far ↓
1 Michael Kaufman // Apr 13, 2006 at 11:05 pm
I too was annoyed that you cannon uninstall a “beta”..it’s a wannabe firefox that i hope will fail.. I think it’s going out of it’s way to be intentionally not flash friendly…this i’d love to know more about.. there’s just stuff I’ve made that works in FF and now doesn’t in 8 and it’s not simple EOLAS stuff..something more i think is going on.
2 Carl // Apr 13, 2006 at 11:13 pm
Beta software shouldn’t be installed on live working machines, it’s quite simple practice. Beta’s are installed at everyones own risk.
Mind you i’ve installed IE7 Beta 2 with no problems and managed to remove it – maybe some sort of Antivirus/Spyware checkers where causing issues? I’d do a system restore if you have it enabled….
3 Andrew Field // Apr 13, 2006 at 11:52 pm
Michael – I agree – the EOLAS stuff could have been fixed much more appropriately, developing an alternative way of making interactive content work smoothly.
We might wonder that Microsoft want the interactive content market to appear choppy so when they introduce their own ‘Sparkle’ software it will look more impressive.
I don’t honestly think that they are deliberately causing problems though – I think it is just slapdash implementation.
Carl – thanks for the advice about betas. I do understand this, but wanted to check. Betas are indeed installed at your own peril. I’ve now got IE7 working perfectly though, togethter with the rest of the system. It was the poor uninstall that caused the problems – it deleted the files, but left the operating system still looking for them.
4 Carl // Apr 14, 2006 at 12:04 am
No problem, I personally use VirtualPC for testing O/S’s http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx
And VirtualServer for testing server O/S’s http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/default.mspx
This allows me to do installs of another OS for testing etc on a “Virtual PC” so to speak.
There is free alternatives such as Vmware: http://www.vmware.com/
On another note. a security and stability update has been released for Firefox. Those with Firefox 1.5+ should be able to just go to Help > Check for Updates, to update their browser
5 Mike J // Apr 14, 2006 at 2:05 am
Yeah, honestly, I’m extremely curious why Microsoft couldn’t just use the acceptable method (which, oddly enough has become standard) of embedding active content that every other browser happens to use without any problems.
It seems very irresponsible of them to take the route that they did, considering how it should alienate customers and frustrate developers. Also, I seriously doubt this will help solve any of their security problems that seem to crop up every other day and subsequently ignored for a month (only to be fixed by outside companies).
6 Andrew Field // Apr 14, 2006 at 2:47 pm
I think, but am not sure, that the method used by other browers also potentially breaks the EOLAS patent too. They went for Microsoft first and now can look for other browsers too – Safari was suggested as the next target.
I’m entirely in agreement with you though – why couldn’t Microsoft sort out an effective alternative instead of messing existing pages up? Why couldn’t they implement the external code .js method that seesm to be the best fix or why couldn’t they develop an alternative method that is a correct fix – a fix that would not actually make things worse!
It cannot be a coincidence that Microsoft will be releasing their own interactive technology whenever they eventually do release Vista – http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/default.mspx
I do my best to defend Microsoft – I don’t like just jumping on a bandwaggon to complain about them. However, with this update to Internet Explorer they have been utterly incompetent.
I was incompetent to install IE7 and then try to uninstall it. However, I still feel that version two betas should perhaps be expected to have some strange effects, but not prevent an entire system from booting.
7 Carl // Apr 14, 2006 at 2:56 pm
I like Microsoft, I don’t really have anything bad to say about them. I’ve always got great support both server & OS wise within a matter of hours from a support technician.
How can you say they have been incompetent? Thousands if not millions of people install Microsoft Beta’s with no “major” problems, you said when doing a web search you only found one other person having the same problem you where having? Surely this shows that it is something to do with something you have installed?
This isn’t even Microsoft fault anyway? They are simply following the rules..
8 Andrew Field // Apr 14, 2006 at 6:07 pm
Carl, the point I’m making is that Microsoft have done a bad job with this upgrade. This actual Beta uninstallation issue is something more common that I’ve now discovered .
The main concern is the slapdash way Microsoft have ‘fixed’ Internet Explorer with this last update. Some might accuse them of deliberately ‘fixing’ it badly so their new technology appears to be better that others. I wouldn’t got that far – instead I feel that Microsoft simply haven’t done a good job fixing Internet Explorer having lost the court case. They’ve badly patched it up and produced an update that makes things much worse in terms of usability and functionality – and it messes up existing pages. That is the problem. My uninstallation problems were not.
You cannot be allowed to get away with your final statement though: “They are simply following the rules.”
No they aren’t – this is half the problem. Web designers have to fix their pages to make them work with IE as if fails to meet many web standards. They ignore the rules and make their own up. Nevertheless, the release of IE7 is meant to be much more standards compliant offering compliance with the WWC’s guidance.
Basically, Microsoft lost a court case about the way Internet Explorer uses interactive content. Instead of producing an effective alternative, they produced a bodged fix which makes things worse. That is my problem.
Microsoft produce some excellent software – and it is great that you’ve been able to get good support. However, perhaps this is more due to your skills and knowledge rather than theirs.
Have a look here:
http://www.fuckmicrosoft.com/content/whatsbad.shtml
Anyway, that’s another topic
9 Andrew Field // Apr 14, 2006 at 6:08 pm
PS – once you look a bit more closely, I can find many more examples of the uninstaller not working well:
http://www.google.com/search?q=ie+7+uninstallation+problems
10 Carl // Apr 14, 2006 at 7:36 pm
In reply to this comment: “Nevertheless, the release of IE7 is meant to be much more standards compliant offering compliance with the WWC’s guidance”
BETA!!!
Im sure you know what a BETA is
“perhaps this is more due to your skills and knowledge rather than theirs” doesn’t make much sense? :s
11 Andrew Field // Apr 14, 2006 at 8:49 pm
Carl – you’ve completely misunderstood me here.
I’m saying that IE7 is meant to be much better – this is me praising Microsoft for finally producing a browser that will be standards compliant i.e. will stick to web standards. I was trying to be positive about Microsoft. Now, others will say that Microsoft have been forced into this because of browsers like Firefox and the now free Opera.
The second comment means that I suspect you have had good support because you know what you are doing – you can operate the servers and know your way around the operating systems. Thus, you ‘get’ good support more because of your own skills than Microsoft’s.
12 bob // Apr 21, 2006 at 6:26 am
i just had this piece of shite break un-installing too. the un-installer is quite obvioulsy not 100% fail safe. great now my system believes there is no IE, but, hey windows update can still find it to lauch… sigh, such crap designs, if only more corps would move away so we can stop having to test with this shit.
13 uh // Apr 25, 2006 at 8:24 pm
i rememaber a similar problems when directx was leaked as beta
14 TJ // Apr 26, 2006 at 9:56 am
I installed IE Beta 2 last Feb and now want to install the new Beta 2 but I can’t uninstaly my Fen install of IE Beta 2. Does anyone have a quick way to do this. I tried add/remove programs but it’s simply not listed there. Thanks.
15 Bigolslabomeat // Apr 28, 2006 at 12:51 am
(I know it’s too late for anyone looking at this page) but if you are running AVG anti-virus… TURN IT OFF WHEN YOU INSTALL THIS
I found out that it was causing my install problems.
Easiest way to get back normaliz.dll is to open task manager, go to run, then browse, select all files. Find the install for IE7 and if you have winrar installed you’ll be able to right-click and extract all the files. Replace the file in system32, run explorer.exe and you’re laughing
16 James // May 5, 2006 at 5:03 pm
I also had the misfortune of stumbling upon this seemingly interesting and harmless Beta.
And I must say that it is the biggest heap of ********* going.
I installed it and opened it. The first thing i noticed was the nice shiny new HUD, it looked, well… nice, but the program would crash instead of opening a URL (My PC out-strips the min requirements) for no reason. Then after several attempts, I decided to try the uninstall, and lo and behold, it failed. I got an annoying error message telling me that it is already uninstalled and then my PC crashed, causing a reboot, after the first of many reboots to come, I could not open any application other than the offending IE7, which once again crashed once opened, rendering my PC almost completely useless. I did however try using a CD I had bought from eBay that enabled me to run a linux based explorer to manually delete any files associated with IE7 (I had to boot from the CD to access it). Once this deed had been completed, I started Windows normally thinking I had finally removed the “parasite” from my HDD.
BUT NO…
The thing re-appeared again, and I couldn’t open any program, but IE7, and once again it crashed. By now I resigned myself to the inevitible chore of re-installing Windows and all of my Apps. After the re-installation, I was finally rd of IE7 and very pleased to be so. I looked at the clock, and I too had wasted my entire evening and sent angry feedback outlining my problem to Micro$oft (I bet the feedback always gets deleted on arrival) and then I had to re-install all of my Apps… it went on and on…
I strongly urge anyone and everyone to stay away from this beta like the plague…
And yes, I was running AVG… and yes it was too late…
17 kkk // May 18, 2006 at 10:58 pm
somebody help me!!
i was using ie6 and firefox(ff mostly)… thot i’ll give IE another chance and installed IE7 beta… knew within mins that it sucks(!!grrrr grr) and uninstalled it…
now i can open IE6 alright, but whenever i try to open a site, it opens it in Firefox :O… now i cant use IE even if i want to. I use IE for certain very specific tasks and I want IE6 back… what do i do??
i tried uninstalling FF, but now when i try to open a site, it gives me an error message box which says “Application not found” ..
HELP…
18 Andrew Field // May 19, 2006 at 9:55 pm
Well, it sounds like you successfully uninstalled ie6, so how about just downloading Internet Explorer 6 via Windows Update. Go to the Microsoft site – http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie6/default.mspx
19 Aldo // May 20, 2006 at 3:36 pm
I need help I uninstalled IE7 and now I have blank desktop and I don’t know what to do!! Everything i try it says normaliz.dll is missing or iertutil.dll so I can’t do anything. I can still use firefox but Evrything isn’t working. Please tell me how to fix this problem.
20 Andrew Field // May 20, 2006 at 4:57 pm
This was the exact thing I found – read what I did to fix it in the text above. See point 9 in my original post.
21 Aldo // May 20, 2006 at 8:07 pm
The problem is I cannot make it so i do have hidden files enabled since I don’t have internet explorer 6 or 7(not 6 to begin with) so how do I enable hidden files?
22 Aldo // May 20, 2006 at 8:54 pm
could anyone send me the file for normaliz.dll through email please
a1bert101@yahoo.com
23 Aldo // May 20, 2006 at 9:30 pm
Is there ayway for me to change the stuff in notepad(%windir%\$NtUninstallie7bet2p$\spuninst\spuninst.exe) so it can work?
24 kkk // May 22, 2006 at 5:04 pm
“Well, it sounds like you successfully uninstalled ie6, so how about just downloading Internet Explorer 6 via Windows Update. Go to the Microsoft site – http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie6/default.mspx ”
the page takes me back to the ie 7 beta download page… cant find ie6 anywhere…
anyway, i found a workaround. i just installed maxthon.. it runs pretty much on the IE engine and has tabs…
MS could as well have bought maxthon and named it IE7 and saved us all a lot of trouble.
25 Sam // May 22, 2006 at 8:00 pm
Thanks so much for your help. I had the exact same problem, i was missing iertutil.dll, and i found it in the temporary directory ie7 installed to. I couldnt find normaliz.dll tho… anyone have it?
26 valentina // May 29, 2006 at 11:37 am
Hi everybody,I’m writing from Italy because I had the bad idea of installing (and uninstalling) explorer beta and now my computer doesn’t work anymore.The well-known normaliz.dll is missing with the iertutil.dll and i don’t know what to do.I really tried every possible solution bout nothing happens.
Can someone send me the 2 missing files and explain to me how to do?Thank you very much..I feel really sad about all that…want my pc back…….;(
27 Andrew Tann // May 30, 2006 at 8:53 am
I’m sooooo glad i stumbled across this thread. its been a life saver.
same situation happened to be. IE7 installed…figured it was utter Cr@p so i uninstalled it…… explorer.exe just wouldn’t run!!! normaliz.dll and iertutil.dll were both missing. so after reading the first post in this thread (cheers mate. thaks for the heads up) i figued out how to fix the problem…except mine was a little different so i thought i’d share. if u have WinRAR installed then u should be fine if you have the IE7 installer pack. using task manager extract the IE7 beta 2 with WinRAR to a folder. change the ‘files of type’ bar to all files instead of programs. looking in the folder you extracted IE7 beta 2 you will find the normaliz.dll and iertutil.dll within. copy both these into the System32 folder and restart your computer. should be back to normal and IE6 running again….or whatever your browser preference may be…personaly i can’t decide and use em all. hope this helps someone. and saves looking for the temp folder.
def won’t be upgrading to IE7 anytime soon!!!. was ready to do a clean install!!!
28 Russ Sanderlin // Jun 1, 2006 at 1:43 pm
The exact same thing happened to me this morning! Thanx for the tip, good idea
Now I’m back up and running again.
29 Jessica // Jun 10, 2006 at 4:39 am
My aunt is also having trouble with explorer at 1st when she would click on any of her icons it would show the internet explorer download page now she isnt even getting that it seems that explorer has wiped everything off her computer all of her desktop items cant be opened any suggestions of how to fix this i was trying to help her but i dont know very much about computers
thanks
30 tec // Jun 29, 2006 at 9:56 pm
Well, I ran up against this problem too. Thanks to the kind folks who posted info here, I was able to recover. The desktop(explore shell) didn’t launch. I was to invoke the task manager and look for the normaliz.dll. It wan’t there, so I used my usb memory stick to copy it over from another windows xp box. I ran the beta install and the temporary files were found in the c:/randomstringofnumbers directory. I copied normalize.dll to the usb memory stick, unplugged, and plugged into the other machine, chose “run” -> browse and copy and pasted from the momory stick to system32 directory. Reboot and voila! It works! I reran the ie beta 3 installer … This time with AVG off and things worked!
A BIG Thank you to the kind folks who posted here! You saved the day! Have fun!
Cheers,
Thomas
31 Natasha // Jul 4, 2006 at 5:54 pm
I’ve installed the IE 7 Beta 2 and by stupid mistake I tried to install the beta 3 over it. I’ve tried numerous times to uninstall and it’s just simply not working
What happens is…the uninstall starts, everything seems to be going fine, then it reaches the part..Updating Registry..I’ve left that running for a few hours and nothing happens, so I cancel it and my computer reboots and IE 7 beta 2 is still there 
I’d really like to know how to get rid of it! so if anyone could help me it would be greatly appreciated 
Thanks,
Natasha
32 Ben Phelps // Jul 6, 2006 at 8:26 pm
Im am reading this with FireFox
And i have an error on my screen that says
This application has failed to start because Normaliz.dll was not found. Re-installing the applaction may fix this problem.
Would ya look at that im having the same problem and doing the same thing.
33 Yogesh Mehta // Jul 9, 2006 at 6:27 am
Well, first of all thanks to all of those who contributed in this forum. It saved me a lot of time. I uninstalled 7 Beta and had AVG running. iexplorer.exe won’t launch as normaliz.dll and newdll.dll were missing.
This is what I did (based upon what others had to say in the forum)
1. Download IE Beta 7 on a different computer. Choose the saave option. Save it on your desktop
2. DON”T INSTALL IT.
3. Download Winrar (its free. google it)
4. Right click the exe file you downloaded for IE and choose extract option. Extract it in a folder. Once again, don’t install it.
5. Copy the normaliz.dll and the other missing dll files on a USB drive.
6. Connect the USB drive to the machine which is causing troubles.
7. Press control + Alt + delete button on the machine
8. Click task manager
9. Go to New : Run
10; Click browse
11. Go to the USB drive, copy the two files. don’t close the browse window.
12. Go to C:\Windows\system32 folder while still in the browse mode and paste it there. Click cancel.
13 restart
14 smile
15 Never install IE betas again.
16. HATE IE, HAIL FIREFOX
34 Andrew Field // Jul 9, 2006 at 10:45 am
I certainly agree with number 16
35 Fredrik Malcus // Jul 17, 2006 at 8:59 am
Well, first – thanx all you people that has posted the solution to the uninstall problem and to add my own two cents I believe that F-Secure might have the same effect as AVG.
36 ULRICH AMOUSSOU // Jul 29, 2006 at 1:24 pm
I have a big respect forBill but i have to be satisfied , as soon as i fixed my computer bye bye explorer i will stick with firefox that i am using now because i have the same problem and no other computer to follow the instruction i will have to wait until i go to my friend house.
thanks for the solution, can i do it without another computer.
ulrich
37 Blu3 // Jul 30, 2006 at 9:47 am
Hi I downloaded Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 and then uninstalled it and installed IE 7 Beta 3 then I had to restart my computer. Now it loads (in safe mode too) with the same error as you first had and Explorer doesn’t open. I can only access my stuff by opening Task Manager > Run > Browse… and opening stuff from there. Fortunatley I had Firefox installed and I searched the issue and also found that there wasn’t much help on the issue. Now I decided to download IE7 again and hope that it would fix the problem but I cannot get past the Genuine Activation Validation code input page because I cannot open the file that gives you the code… my Windows IS REAL just the error comes up when I open the file.
Now I cannot download IE 7 and have no access the the missing .DLL file can anyone please help me out!
38 Blu3 // Jul 30, 2006 at 10:00 am
Don’t worry ive found a simple way to fix the problem.
1. Using Firefox download the DLL.
http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?normaliz
2. Extract the ZIP file with WinRAR because winzip wont open it.
3. Copy the DLL file to Windows > System Folder (read readme for more info)
Hope this helps most people without a USB drive.
Also as soon as you copy the file type explorer in Run in Task Manager and it explorer should load without the need to restart firefox.
This is a HUGE problem by Microsoft many people will experience this problem I just hope they all read this page. Thanks for your help guys!
Finally as Yogesh Mehta said ‘HATE IE, HAIL FIREFOX’!!!!!!!!!
39 Larry // Jul 30, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Blu3 gets the dozen ice cold beers. I spent 12 hours in the last 24 hours trying to correct this on my business machine. I also had to download iertutil.dll along with the normaliz.dll using WinRAR.
You saved me a ton of time correcting this. I vouch for Blu3′s method. I tried all sorts of fixes, none worked untill now.
40 Blu3 // Jul 31, 2006 at 3:01 am
No problem i just glad I can help. Although now I use both IE 7 beta 3 and FF 2 beta 1. They both seem to work fine but you still must hail FF.
41 FlashICT.net » Uninstalling IE7 beta 3? // Aug 2, 2006 at 10:38 am
[...] You might be aware of my exploits with Internet Explorer beta 2 – if not have a look at the most popular post on FlashICT.net, ‘uninstalling IE7 beta 2‘. I wasted an entire evening of my life with the software and, from the number of responses, it appears that many others have done exactly the same. Yet Microsoft have now had Internet Explorer beta 3 out for over a month now. With my various websites and Flash learning materials, I do feel the need to keep up to date with Microsoft’s latest releases so I can make sure that everything is working as it should. I am a 100% Firefox user and don’t see this changing. Yet it is vital to have other browsers installed so everything can be checked. This is especially true for Internet Explorer 7 which Microsoft will force all Windows users to install when they release it as a critical update. As a side note, I wonder if another anti-trust lawsuit could get them to make Firefox a critial update too [...]
42 nicolas // Aug 3, 2006 at 6:49 pm
You can download iertutil.dll and normaliz.dll from the web site http://www.down-dll.com
43 Jill // Aug 4, 2006 at 12:45 pm
HELP!!!
I downloaded stupid Internet Exp 7 Beta and then uninstalled. Right after I uninstalled it, my whole system went haywire. I connect to the internet via a wireless network that is upstairs in my house and that connection was totally gone. When I tried to go to system restore it kept saying that I was missing iertutil.dll but the problem is that I cant even get online to download iertutil.dll from the website http://www.down-dll.com. What do I do?? Help.. so mad right now!
44 Blu3 // Aug 5, 2006 at 12:27 am
Read my solution post #38…
45 Igor // Aug 5, 2006 at 9:23 am
OMG… i hate this BETA… i had B2… so I unistalled it. But the uninstall didn’t work properly, since it got stuck cleaning the registry… i left it 30 min, but nothing. I tried several times, and it always got tuck there. So i Cntrl-Alt-Del and stopped it. I installed BETA 3… and then reboot… and i got this problem, of not having normaliz.dll… I got my laptop, found this webpage, downloaded the file with a link posted here, transfered it on lan, placed it in System32… and reboot… and know BETA 3 and my computer are working again… but im scared of unistalling BETA 3… when i did it with BETA 2 i… got fckd
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