not to put too fine a point on it...but a "clean" uninstall of IE would require an uninstall of windows...as bill says...they're "integrated"...there are some progs out there that that will sort of do it..and apparently win2k sp3 will allow choosing "alternatives" but right now you're kind of stuck with it...you don't have to use it...but you have to "have" it...

as for how it got mangled...well it is windows after all...hehe...actually could be many things...corrupted dll...dll replaced by an older one from a recently installed prog...incomplete windows update...any number of things...using regserv32 is a good fix...if you know what the offending dll is...which is often not an easy thing to determine...

your fix was the easiest and fastest...