Windows 7 - "dependency chain" "windows 7" internet "windows explorer"

"dependency chain" "windows 7" internet "windows explorer"

At the time of this writing, this search in Google will produce one result at best. Am I searching the wrong things? I have tried a couple handfuls of variants, and I am coming up with zilch.

Though I am fairly well versed in Windows 7 from working on other people's machines, I decided to stick with good old XP because of one issue above all else. When I instructed my firewall to block Windows Explorer from accessing the Internet it completely cut me off from the Internet, no ifs, ands or buts. My understanding of why this is happened leads me to believe the dependency chain for Internet access goes through Windows Explorer. I have long had a habit of blocking my File Manager of choice access to the Internet because... well, it's a file manager! Admittedly, my one experience with Windows 7 on my own machine was a retired student version of Server 2008 R2, but as soon as I found out that was the case, I decided not to make the move to Windows 7 and went back to my XP installation. I believe I was using Sunbelt Personal Firewall at the time. I now use PCTools Free Firewall.

Is this still the case with Windows 7? Is there a workaround if it is?

I haven't tried to recreate this on another person's machine.

+KronKyrios

Hi KronKyrios, welcome to 7F!

I did find some very old information that may shed some light:
http://www.pctools.com/forum/showthread.php?17198-explorer.exe-(W98)&p=58079#post58079

"Launch Browser Windows in a Separate Process" Setting Is Not Available in Internet Explorer 5.01 or Internet Explorer 5.5

You can go into Services and check:
Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)
Network Connections
Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
Windows Management Instrumentation

R-click on each one, then Properties, then the Dependencies Tab.
You would have to cross check each one that is listed.

Here is a good list to help you: Black Viper’s Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Service Configurations

Thank you for looking into this. Despite the links being related to IE5 and W98, there was actually some useful info there. I would have to run a network monitor to see what kind of traffic it was generating. Since I no longer have that installation of Windows 7 I can't troubleshoot it unless it comes up again in a future installation. At least I know which directions to look if it does.

I figure if this symptom could be easily recreated, someone would have done it by now and posted here. It sounds like I can assume this was either due to the fact that this was an early version of Windows 7, and/or it was configured improperly, and/or my firewall was not truly ready for Windows 7.



The second biggest issue I had was when I was trying to read very badly damaged DVDs (copying files to the hard drive with Windows Explorer). When the drive would hit the bad sections of the disc, and it started repeating its attempts to read it, Windows would virtually lock up. I could still move the mouse and whatnot, but Windows Explorer, Firefox, Start Menu, etc would be unresponsive until either the DVD reader recovered, timed out, or I ejected the disc. I made the assumption that it was the same dependency chain problem I was experiencing above. I remember thinking it was a shameful excuse for a "robust" operating system it was, if it couldn't handle a damaged disc without completely interrupting one's workflow.

Anyone else experience this with the current version of Windows 7? Again, sorry I have not tested this myself since I have no Windows 7 machine in the house, and don't normally think to take damaged discs to other people's houses when I work on their computers, lol.

If this behavior is fixed since then, as well, I might just reconsider my decision to stick with XP the next time I reinstall.

Kron Kyrios

Oh, and I am a long time fan of Black Viper.

Your welcome!
For your symptoms, I would lean towards the firewall.


These might help in your disk recovery efforts.
This one is good up to 7:
Roadkil.Net - Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier Program Download

This one is good up to Vista, but may work with 7:
CD/DVD recovery software - Zip Recovery Toolbox - freeware

This one is for Linux:
https://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html

Thank You,

That does sound like the most likely culprit.

As for my current set-up XP, I use PC Tools Now, with Avast and ThreatFire. I plan on adding Sandboxie. I also use a host of programs covered by Ninite. I have to go through my chosen programs to find out which ones have a Windows 7 compatible version. This will be simple now because I just made a link list for all the programs I use.

As for the Discs, when I say bad I mean these were bad. They were all written on a CD writer which had gone out of alignment and was able to read it's own discs fine... until it died. They had bad-sector counts into the hundreds of thousands. I tried 8 different recovery programs at the time, and most of them would either lock up, fail out, or continue indefinitely because, in the worst case scenarios, it would take the program 20-30 seconds per bad sector and some of the programs did not attempt to skip any bad sectors whatsoever. The best program I found was Alcohol. It had a combo box where you could select sector skipping. But, even it was unable to even build images of most the discs. I had to set the sector skip to 10,000 to get it to finish in less than 2 days. Fortuneately, nothing truly important was on them. It was a fun project to do.

Calling this one solved!

Oh and thanks for the links to the recovery tools. Always like to look at new programs.

Your welcome! Glad you have it sorted out for now, your welcome back anytime!