Hello, I have a HP Pavilion N5240 Notebook that is running Windows XP. When I BOOT up after windows loads I get this following error: "Explorer.EXE - Unable to locate Component" (Could not locate WININET.DLL) . My laptop was working fine before.
 
I can see my desktops background and that is all. I leave it on to see if anything else loads but nothing will show. There are no longer any icons not even the windows Taskbar. My screensaver comes out as well, but I can not access anything. I try to press Ctrl+Alt+Del to reboot my notebook but it won't even let me do that.
 
Any help is greatly appreciated.It sounds like you may have had a virus on your computer.  There are several viruses that target the wininet.dll file.  Depending on your antivirus software, I have seen antivirus DELETE this file because it cannot repair it.  If you have your windows XP cd handy, you can put it in your computer before you start it up.  You may have to hit a key on the keyboard to get your computer to boot to the cd (usually f12).  Once you boot to the windows XP cd, there should be an OPTION to repair your windows installation.  Choose this option.  This should put the file back on your computer.

When you do get the system to boot correctly, make sure you have current virus definitions, and run a full virus scan.

If your virus scanner is expired, check out HTTP://www.avast.com.  They have a FREE virus scanner available for download, provided that it is for personal use only.

I hope this helps.