I just had the worst experience!
I broke my explorerframe.dll file (I am a guy that uses 3rd party themes and cursors)
Without Explorerframe, your explorer.exe won't run. That leaves you with no choice than to reinstall, but is that really your ONLY choice?
No, I quickly needed to safe my butt from a reinstall, I thought if there was no explorer, I will use a 3rd party explorer program. Note: I was in save mode, and couldn't install any programs from there. My only option was to run Winrar, which was quite easy to do :
Press Alt + Ctrl + Delete
see task manager pop-up
click run
Type the 3rd party explorer's name or in my case Winrar.
In Winrar a could navigate to my system 32 folder and replace/fix my Explorerframe file.
as soon is it was fixed, explorer opened.
There, I saved my self and my PC....
What does this learn us?
Always look for ways to safe/rescue your computer.