IE In XP Help

This is annoying me. Even more so since i dont actually use IE. But a program ran that appeared to get rid of my IE in my comp. So i had to redownload ie8 for xp.
But i seem to be stuck after that point. Because i have no IE icon/shortcut. I have no IE folder in the start menu.
I can get to the ie folder at C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer but when i go in there, the main 'e' icon for IE (where i could make a shortcut from) is not there. Everything else seems to be there, but not that. Yet at the same time if i type in C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe then the IE browser does come up. But there is no iexplore.exe in that folder.

Its just annoying me. I want it back the way it was so i can continue ignoring it.

I thought you could get IE from a windows update?

only update available is for windows search 4.0
But i can access IE browser but only if i type the full address in, so i must already have it. I just cant physically find it to access it and do anything with it.

It sounds like you had a browser hijacker. Unfortunately IE in xp is so embedded if a system restore doesn't fix it you are boned and need to reinstall.

IE in XP is literally the same thing as the file explorer. You can type a URL in the address bar of your file explorer and it will open the website. Whatever you ran likely either changed a registry entry or a local policy.

i ran something off the windows xp disk itself when i was trying to find a different program. I thought it was going to bring up a list and instead ran a program. That was what removed IE. I tried reinstalling IE, which is what lead me to this point.

for a visual. Since i have my laptop and desktop set up the same.

This is what it was


This is what it is now


After reinstalling ie8 for xp my ie folder looks like this

Notice no big 'e' icon in there

like there is on my laptop

search for IE, find the executable, shortcut it.

the only thing that shows up when searching IE is the folder i just posted the pic of

Right click on desktop > New > Shortcut > type "iexplore" > next > next, then done.

file not found