How often have you opened up your Internet Explorer only to have it crash, close and give you one of the cryptic messages about reporting the error? You’re likely not very interested in reporting an error – you’d rather get your internet up and working again. If you’ve examined the logs of the crash, you can see all sort of gibberish, but look for an indication that it is the “yt.dll” causing the problem. If so, the problem is simple – your Yahoo toolbar is messing up and needs to be fixed.

The YT.dll.err

Computer errors are unbelievably frustrating, but when you can actually fix the problem yourself with minimum amounts of trouble, you’ll feel great and be back to work in no time. In this case, the closing internet explorer window or the cryptic warning messages you’ve been seeing are a sign that it’s time to rework your Yahoo toolbar. You’ll want to start by confirming that it is the Yahoo toolbar giving you trouble.

In the error logs, you’ll know if it’s the Yahoo toolbar by the name of the DLL file associated with it. YT.dll is one of the major support files for the toolbar. If it becomes corrupted or doesn’t work properly, your toolbar won’t work properly.  Never fear, however, it’s simple to resolve this particular problem. You just need to uninstall the Yahoo Toolbar and then reload it so that it’s working correctly again.

Repairing/Removing the Yahoo! Toolbar

To remove the Yahoo Toolbar, you’ll start by going to Start and then Control Panel. From there, click on Add and Remove Programs. In the newest versions of Windows, you’ll go to Programs and Features from the Control Panel.

Find the Yahoo Toolbar program on the list. Highlight and then click on Remove or Uninstall Program if that option is present (in older Windows machines) or highlight the name of the Yahoo toolbar and then click on Uninstall at the top of the menu. In the example below, a game is highlighted and the Uninstall option is evident at the top of the menu.



If you’d rather not remove the Yahoo toolbar completely, you do have the option to try and repair the application before you remove it for good. To do that, you’d simply click on Repair at the top of the menu bar to begin that process. Should the repair prove to be unsuccessful, however, you can still remove the program completely.

Once you click on Uninstall, you’ll be given a confirmation screen. Follow through with the instructions to remove the toolbar and if a survey pops up from Yahoo, you may stop to answer and submit the questions, but taking the online survey that pops up with many applications you remove is certainly not required.

Once the Yahoo toolbar is removed, there isn’t a need to restart your computer. You can simply close out of the Control Panel window and open up Microsoft Explorer. You should not see any additional problems with the YT.dll.err error, but you won’t see the Yahoo toolbar either. If you’re used to seeing the toolbar when you work online, you’ll want to make a point of downloading it again so that it works properly.

Reloading the Yahoo Toolbar

To reload the toolbar, be sure to go directly to the Yahoo page where the toolbar is located. To download the toolbar and be sure you have the latest, most complete version, click on Download Now on the right side of the screen.

You’ll be prompted to agree to the download. You will also have the choice of setting your homepage to Yahoo as well as using the Yahoo toolbar. Leave those boxes checked as desired and select I Agree.



The download will begin and after you follow the instructions, the Yahoo toolbar will be reloaded into your Internet Explorer ready for you to use and, hopefully, error free.

YT.dll err and Malware

While removing and then reloading is a simple fix to what can easily become a hugely frustrating problem, it’s incredibly important to do your research ahead of time and to pay careful attention to the toolbar you’re downloading and working with. The DLL for Yahoo unfortunately causes errors frequently, and because it’s a common DLL, many of the online “bad guys” use the name to hide their own malware programs.

How to Check

You can generally tell if you’re seeing a legitimate problem with the Yahoo toolbar or if you’re dealing with a malware issue by checking the logs for the failure in Internet Explorer. If your logs are showing a problem with YT.dll, it’s very likely you’ll dealing with the real issues known to the makers of the Yahoo toolbar.

You can be confident you’re malware free, however, by running a security sweep on your machine. Windows has a built in security component that can help detect malware that might be hidden under the name of YT.dll or you can use an online scan, like Norton Antivirus to double check all of your files and programs.

Once you’re declared clean and free of bugs, proceed with the removal and reinstall of the Yahoo toolbar using only the Yahoo website. Using a download or program from any other website might very well be opening you up to additional malicious attacks.