Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

May have virus cause comp won't let me open firefox, delete, reinstall

  • 3 replies
  • 42 have this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by Eileen815

loveusingfirefox
loveusingfirefox
more options

This is a shared computer so it didn't happen to me but to someone else. He says he had firefox open and all of a sudden it shut off. When we try to open firefox it says Choose the program you want to open this file. Now we can't run disk clean because the same window pops up. We can use internet explorer but as for firefox we can't do anything. We can't delete it, because each time we run our Add or remove programs because a window pops up saying application not found. We can't reinstall firefox because again the Open with window pops up.

This is a shared computer so it didn't happen to me but to someone else. He says he had firefox open and all of a sudden it shut off. When we try to open firefox it says Choose the program you want to open this file. Now we can't run disk clean because the same window pops up. We can use internet explorer but as for firefox we can't do anything. We can't delete it, because each time we run our Add or remove programs because a window pops up saying application not found. We can't reinstall firefox because again the Open with window pops up.

All Replies (3)

Jazien
Jazien
more options

Hi there,

My situation is a little different. I HAD a virus, but got rid of it with some online software (malwarebytes). I'm pretty sure it worked, as I'm not getting the constant 'XP Home Security 2011' notifications anymore. However, I think in it's removal, it had to disable both internet explorer AND firefox or something. I got internet explorer to work just like you said, but firefox did the 'which program will you use...' thing.

BUT, with a little tampering, I was able to fix it. Here are the steps:

1. Open the file your mozilla firefox program is located in. (usually C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox)

2. Find the icon that has the firefox logo on it (the fox circling around the planet, if you didn't already know)

4. Right Click and go to 'Run As'

This is the part where you need to be an administrator. On my computer, I wasn't on the admin account, but was able to input my password anyway with a window that popped up.

After you do that, mozilla's startup should pop up and it'll work again. I'm honestly not too sure WHY this works... just that it worked for me.

Hope you all have the same luck I did!

Modified by Jazien

arssaas
arssaas
more options

hi there i had the same problem, when i clicked firefox it says which program would you like to open with, even when i open control panel or run program etc. but if your willing to spend some money which i have done it worked straight away it cost me approx 27 pounds(39 dollars) its called pc mighty max 2011, it cleans all your registry keys etc and makes your computer faster, it did the job for me. gooooooooooood luck

Eileen815
Eileen815
more options

This fixed the same problem I had. My anitvirus detected a virus and quarantined it but after that it wouldn't load firefox. Right clicking the firefox icon in the firefox file and clicking Run as Administrator worked great. Thanks