IE8 slows down computer when not using browser

Hi,

I upgraded IE8 on my WinXP box a few weeks ago, and while I like the browser
better than IE6, I now have some issues on my computer.

Specifically, whenever I close an application, there is a lag time of
between two to three seconds, during which the machine is unresponsive. I
can move the mouse, but that is it; no start menu, no keyboard interaction,
nothing.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on, and especially if there is any
way to keep IE8 without having my machine being unresponsive?

note: I have done the .dll re-registering procedure documented at
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/2009/03...eak-will-help/ ,
but it didn't help.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Jon

Jon Danniken snuck on to your hard drive to scribble:
Hi,

I upgraded IE8 on my WinXP box a few weeks ago, and while I like the browser
better than IE6, I now have some issues on my computer.

Specifically, whenever I close an application, there is a lag time of between
two to three seconds, during which the machine is unresponsive. I can move
the mouse, but that is it; no start menu, no keyboard interaction, nothing.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on, and especially if there is any
way to keep IE8 without having my machine being unresponsive?

note: I have done the .dll re-registering procedure documented at
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/2009/03...eak-will-help/ ,
but it didn't help.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Jon

First step, run a full system virus scan. It's probably not the
problem, but it's always a good idea to eliminate the possibility since
there are viruses out there that do slow down browsers and other things
as part of their contamination.

I recommend using Malwarebytes.
malwarebytes.org

--
-There are some who call me...
Jim


"Do, or do not. There is no 'try'."
- Yoda ('The Empire Strikes Back')

The [iexplore.exe] process may appear from time to time in your
process-list even when you are not actually using it. This is sometimes
due to it being required when certain types of Automatic Updates are being
downloaded / installed from the net. From my experiences, it may peak
quite high on the "Mem Usage" column in the Window's Task Manager, but only
remains there for a short time and I have I found that it does not occur
very often.

If you think that the behaviour and memory usage of IE8 is well above that
described, then I would certainly employ a series of anti-malware solutions
as suggested (by "James D Andrews").

A MalwareBytes "full-scan"
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam/program/mbam-setup.exe

Installing and scanning with SpyBotSD
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/mirrors/index.html

Installing and applying IE protection with SpywareBlaster
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/sbdownload.html

....you can also do a "full-scan" with your own installed Anti-Virus
software, plus, if your PC is up-to-date with Window's Automatic Updates,
do a "full-scan" with Microsoft Malicious-Software Removal Tool (Type
"MRT.exe" into the "Run" box).

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-)




"Jon Danniken" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I upgraded IE8 on my WinXP box a few weeks ago, and while I like the
browser better than IE6, I now have some issues on my computer.

Specifically, whenever I close an application, there is a lag time of
between two to three seconds, during which the machine is unresponsive.
I can move the mouse, but that is it; no start menu, no keyboard
interaction, nothing.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on, and especially if there is
any way to keep IE8 without having my machine being unresponsive?

note: I have done the .dll re-registering procedure documented at
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/2009/03...eak-will-help/
, but it didn't help.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Jon

Tim Meddick wrote:
The [iexplore.exe] process may appear from time to time in your
process-list even when you are not actually using it. This is
sometimes due to it being required when certain types of Automatic
Updates are being downloaded / installed from the net. From my
experiences, it may peak quite high on the "Mem Usage" column in the
Window's Task Manager, but only remains there for a short time and I
have I found that it does not occur very often.

The only automatic update I have is with Avast. The problem occurs at all
times whenever the computer is on, and is predictable (is consistent).

If you think that the behaviour and memory usage of IE8 is well above
that described, then I would certainly employ a series of
anti-malware solutions as suggested (by "James D Andrews").

The change occurred immediately upon the installation of IE8, and the
machine has no spy/mal/adware. The problem is a direct result of
installing IE8.

Thanks,

Jon

Jon Danniken wrote:
Tim Meddick wrote:
The [iexplore.exe] process may appear from time to time in your
process-list even when you are not actually using it. This is
sometimes due to it being required when certain types of Automatic
Updates are being downloaded / installed from the net. From my
experiences, it may peak quite high on the "Mem Usage" column in the
Window's Task Manager, but only remains there for a short time and I
have I found that it does not occur very often.

The only automatic update I have is with Avast. The problem occurs
at all times whenever the computer is on, and is predictable (is
consistent).
If you think that the behaviour and memory usage of IE8 is well above
that described, then I would certainly employ a series of
anti-malware solutions as suggested (by "James D Andrews").

The change occurred immediately upon the installation of IE8, and the
machine has no spy/mal/adware. The problem is a direct result of
installing IE8.

Another thing I'm noticing, occasionally, and so far seemingly at random, is
when opening up a folder (like MyMusic) and searching for something.
Instead of the search bar opening up on the left side, when I type the first
few letters of the file I'm trying to find the focus will just go to the
first instance of that combination.

In other words, I open MyMusic, hit F3 (or CTRL-F), and start to type
"Sinatra", it will just go to the first instance of "sinatra" without having
the search bar open and without having to hit ENTER.

It is bizarre, and I'm guessing another artifact of the coupling of IE with
Windows, but it is the first problem that I would really like to solve.

Thanks,

Jon

Not at all clear about what exactly it is you are trying to describe
here....

I'm supposing you have opened up "My Music" in explorer, pressed [F3]
brings up Window's Classic Search. Now, is it that you start to type into
the box labelled "All or part of the file name", what seems to happen
(exactly) then, as I am unclear about that.

The only thing I can think of is Window's "Auto-Complete" function, which
can be modified by going to ;

Classic Search [F3] "Change Preferences" (last item) "Turn
off Auto-Complete" (last item again).

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-)




"Jon Danniken" wrote in message
...
Jon Danniken wrote:
Tim Meddick wrote:
The [iexplore.exe] process may appear from time to time in your
process-list even when you are not actually using it. This is
sometimes due to it being required when certain types of Automatic
Updates are being downloaded / installed from the net. From my
experiences, it may peak quite high on the "Mem Usage" column in the
Window's Task Manager, but only remains there for a short time and I
have I found that it does not occur very often.

The only automatic update I have is with Avast. The problem occurs
at all times whenever the computer is on, and is predictable (is
consistent).
If you think that the behaviour and memory usage of IE8 is well above
that described, then I would certainly employ a series of
anti-malware solutions as suggested (by "James D Andrews").

The change occurred immediately upon the installation of IE8, and the
machine has no spy/mal/adware. The problem is a direct result of
installing IE8.

Another thing I'm noticing, occasionally, and so far seemingly at random,
is when opening up a folder (like MyMusic) and searching for something.
Instead of the search bar opening up on the left side, when I type the
first few letters of the file I'm trying to find the focus will just go
to the first instance of that combination.

In other words, I open MyMusic, hit F3 (or CTRL-F), and start to type
"Sinatra", it will just go to the first instance of "sinatra" without
having the search bar open and without having to hit ENTER.

It is bizarre, and I'm guessing another artifact of the coupling of IE
with Windows, but it is the first problem that I would really like to
solve.

Thanks,

Jon

Tim Meddick wrote:
Not at all clear about what exactly it is you are trying to describe
here....

I'm supposing you have opened up "My Music" in explorer, pressed [F3]
brings up Window's Classic Search. Now, is it that you start to type
into the box labelled "All or part of the file name", what seems to
happen (exactly) then, as I am unclear about that.

Sorry, it is kind of hard to describe. The search pane (Classic, and on the
left) doesn't open up, but since I'm not looking at the screen I don't
notice that (I type faster than I look).

So when I type the first few letters and look up, the letters aren't in any
field, but somehow the file beginning with that string is selected out of
the many files in that folder.

It is neither predictable nor consistent, but it happens occasionally.
Hitting F3 again does bring up the search pane (classic), which then
functions as normal.

It's not really a problem, not like the multi-second lag time I experience
after installing IE8 (and which prompted my initial post, which still
remains to be rectified).

Thanks,

Jon

| It's not really a problem, not like the multi-second lag time I experience
| after installing IE8 (and which prompted my initial post, which still
| remains to be rectified).
|
You might try Process Monitor:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s...rnals/bb896645

It may be informative if something's going on during
the interval. The only other thing I can think of is to
try turning off various things like AV. Most AV these
days is incredibly bloated, and many of them seem to
slow things down in general. If it were me I'd want to
rule that out.

It's just a guess from what you have told me but, if you open any explorer
window, including search results, with some files / folders displayed, if
you tap on any key, the first file / folder beginning with that letter will
automatically be highlighted [selected]

This is also the behaviour on the desktop - when the desktop has the focus
(by clicking on an empty area of it) pressing any of the alphabetical keys
will result in the first file beginning with that letter being highlighted.

There is no way to turn this feature off.

Of course, you may well not meant this at all!!....

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-)




"Jon Danniken" wrote in message
...
Tim Meddick wrote:
Not at all clear about what exactly it is you are trying to describe
here....

I'm supposing you have opened up "My Music" in explorer, pressed [F3]
brings up Window's Classic Search. Now, is it that you start to type
into the box labelled "All or part of the file name", what seems to
happen (exactly) then, as I am unclear about that.

Sorry, it is kind of hard to describe. The search pane (Classic, and on
the left) doesn't open up, but since I'm not looking at the screen I
don't notice that (I type faster than I look).

So when I type the first few letters and look up, the letters aren't in
any field, but somehow the file beginning with that string is selected
out of the many files in that folder.

It is neither predictable nor consistent, but it happens occasionally.
Hitting F3 again does bring up the search pane (classic), which then
functions as normal.

It's not really a problem, not like the multi-second lag time I
experience after installing IE8 (and which prompted my initial post,
which still remains to be rectified).

Thanks,

Jon

Jon Danniken was thinking very hard and all he could come up with was:
Tim Meddick wrote:
The [iexplore.exe] process may appear from time to time in your
process-list even when you are not actually using it. This is
sometimes due to it being required when certain types of Automatic
Updates are being downloaded / installed from the net. From my
experiences, it may peak quite high on the "Mem Usage" column in the
Window's Task Manager, but only remains there for a short time and I
have I found that it does not occur very often.

The only automatic update I have is with Avast. The problem occurs at all
times whenever the computer is on, and is predictable (is consistent).

If you think that the behaviour and memory usage of IE8 is well above
that described, then I would certainly employ a series of
anti-malware solutions as suggested (by "James D Andrews").

The change occurred immediately upon the installation of IE8, and the machine
has no spy/mal/adware. The problem is a direct result of installing IE8.

Thanks,

Jon

This brings to mind a question I have. What's the best/easiest way to
tell if Avast is actively doing a download or checking for updates at a
given time.

I say this because I know that I have occasional slowdowns, but a short
while later I'll get the message that the Avast update is complete and
everything's back to normal.

(I'm on Firefox, though)

--
-There are some who call me...
Jim


"What do you mean?" he said. "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean
that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel
good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"
-Gandalf, after Bilbo Baggins says "Good Morning"

On 11/12/2011 10:30 AM, aeroloose wrote:
On 11/7/2011 4:08 AM, Jon Danniken wrote:
Hi,

I upgraded IE8 on my WinXP box a few weeks ago, and while
I like the browser
better than IE6, I now have some issues on my computer.

Specifically, whenever I close an application, there is a
lag time of
between two to three seconds, during which the machine is
unresponsive. I
can move the mouse, but that is it; no start menu, no
keyboard interaction,
nothing.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on, and especially
if there is any
way to keep IE8 without having my machine being unresponsive?

note: I have done the .dll re-registering procedure
documented at
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/2009/03...eak-will-help/
,
but it didn't help.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Jon


A shot in the dark ... do you have Windows Desktop Search?
The indexing & processing time associated with this program
is killer to older XP and low-memory systems (e.g. mine). It
may be that IE8 interacts differently with Search and the
indexing after a program exits is slowing you down.

I stayed away from IE8 after reading about responsiveness
issues on old systems. IE7 has most of the features I like
in IE8. Perhaps you could try IE7.

Aero

Resend - TB broken on update

aeroloose wrote:

A shot in the dark ... do you have Windows Desktop Search?
The indexing & processing time associated with this program
is killer to older XP and low-memory systems (e.g. mine). It
may be that IE8 interacts differently with Search and the
indexing after a program exits is slowing you down.

Hey Aero, I have neither WDS or Indexing Service activated on this box. I
also have the accelerators and Windows Live Search deactivated in IE8.

I stayed away from IE8 after reading about responsiveness
issues on old systems. IE7 has most of the features I like
in IE8. Perhaps you could try IE7.

If IE7 has the autocomplete feature from the address bar (like IE6 and IE8),
I would probably be happy with it.

Thanks,

Jon

On 11/12/2011 11:24 PM, Jon Danniken wrote:
aeroloose wrote:

A shot in the dark ... do you have Windows Desktop Search?
The indexing& processing time associated with this program
is killer to older XP and low-memory systems (e.g. mine). It
may be that IE8 interacts differently with Search and the
indexing after a program exits is slowing you down.

Hey Aero, I have neither WDS or Indexing Service activated on this box. I
also have the accelerators and Windows Live Search deactivated in IE8.

I stayed away from IE8 after reading about responsiveness
issues on old systems. IE7 has most of the features I like
in IE8. Perhaps you could try IE7.

If IE7 has the autocomplete feature from the address bar (like IE6 and IE8),
I would probably be happy with it.

Thanks,

Jon


Jon,

Can't speak to auto-complete, as I have almost everything
auto- turned off on my system. But, it's easy enough to
trial IE7. Remove 8 and give 7 a try, and see if your
slowdowns remain or improve. At worst, you can always go
back to 8.

Good luck,
Aero