Problem with internet explorer 8

Running a full scan in the mean time sounds like a good idea to me.

emilyan2010 said:

I cannot close with that X, no matter how many times I click on it (since it blocks......). I am using an admin account on my computer. As I pointed out before, I can only close it from processes tab in task manager.

OK, so thread 0 is probably hung (the UI thread) waiting on something. I'd suggest the following:

1. Add the following registry value:
Key: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
Value: TabProcGrowth
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 0

2. Make sure all other iexplore.exe processes are gone, and start a new IE window

3. Make IE hang, as you've previously done

4. Go to task manager, click the "Processes" tab, and find the iexplore.exe entry in the list

5. Right-click that iexplore.exe entry, and select "Create Dump File" - note the location it writes the .dmp file to (usually somewhere in your profile's %temp% directory)

6. Zip up that .dmp file, and upload it somewhere we can download it from (it will likely be too large to attach to the board).

We can take a look at that .dmp and at least get an idea of what thread 0 is hung up on.

There's a toolbar installed (can't tell which one) that's trying to create a popup window, which is hanging thread 0 waiting for it to complete (so it can draw the UI for the popup). Thread 0 is waiting on 15 - I'll have some more when I have more time. One question though - if you disable InPrivate browsing completely, does the problem go away??

Add this to the registry:
Key: HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Privacy
Value: EnableInPrivateBrowsing
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 0

Any toolbars should be removed through programs and features, as they can cause many, many problems. I've never heard of them causing this particular problem, but I would not be surprised.

As promised, I looked further at the dump when I had more time. I did verify it's running a "toolbar", specifically it's trying to run the toolbar {4b78d326-d922-44f9-af2a-07805c2a3560}, which appears to be the IE menu band (makes sense, the tools menu is a menu band) coming from ieframe.dll. Since this particular toolband can have hooks into it to display custom menu items, I took a look deeper at the RPC call in the stack to see where that was going. What I found was that it is making a local RPC call, but out-of-process to process 1412 (IE's process PID is 508 in this dump). The registered server interface that IE is calling into is {67DFD707-8549-483F-9B63-FF054EDB5428}, which is a COM component called "iwpcintegrate" - this appears to be a component of the Windows Live Family Safety components (probably the Parental Controls module, given that this interface is registered to be engaged when clicking the Tools menu as it has hooks there).

To recap, like I mentioned earlier, in this IE process thread 0 is waiting on thread 15, which is making this RPC call to what appears to be Windows Live Parental Controls. It has a timeout of 0xffffffff, or infinity - as long as the iwpcintegrate COM component never responds, thread 15 in IE will be stuck waiting for that response, which blocks thread 0 from updating the UI, causing IE to appear hung (it's not, but it can no longer redraw or respond to shell or mouse messages, as the frame message pump is on thread 0). Thus, removing this particular windows live essentials component (at the least) would be a good test, as that's where the RPC call dies.

In the Control Panel, under "Uninstall a Program", double-click the "Windows Live Essentials" listing and choose uninstall. Once removed (you may have to reboot), you can retest IE to see if it works. If so, you can re-download the Windows Live Essentials package, making sure to do a custom install and only installing the components you actually use (if any).