IE8 iexplore.exe and poor design/development/code
Multiple iexplore.exe in task manager, even with no IE windows open/running. Browser won;t launch on click sometimes, and 4 iexplore.exe will appear when launched a second time. I get this behavior on brand new systems with nothing but windows 7 and all updates installed. I get it when running IE with no add-ons too. I notice it is espeically likely to happen if i close and re-open IE quickly. I can reproduce it on several computers from different manufacturers with a clean install of windows only with all updates. Again i am more likely to produce it if i close and reopen quickly. Sometimes i click to launch ie and nothing comes up but the two iexplore.exe processes appear in task manager. if i click ie again it will launch and i will have 4 iexplore.exe processes for a single browser/tab session with a blank homepage. again i am able to reproduce on clean installs with nothing but windows and all updates, and on different PCs from different manufacturers. my research has shown this is the automatic crash recovery in IE. furthermore i have also found that disabling the auto crash recovery in IE does not disable or change this behavior. therefore i have concluded that IE8's code is flawed and this behavior is a result of poor code design and poor error handling within the browser. Is there a way to change this behavior? does Microsoft intend to fix this flaw? Google is awash with people that can reproduce this as well but none have a solution so far. I have a network of over 100 workstations and all of my users are complaining about this. Is there a way to change this behavior with group policy?
July 8th, 2010 6:00pm

This is NOT a windows 7 issue if so then I and others would be seeing it. You need to stop and look at YOUR setup. I have 100's of servers with who knows how many workstations connect and I have not had a single call about the issue you are posting.
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July 8th, 2010 7:38pm

This is NOT a windows 7 issue if so then I and others would be seeing it. You need to stop and look at YOUR setup. I have 100's of servers with who knows how many workstations connect and I have not had a single call about the issue you are posting. Wow. So default settings would be the problem then???? We're talking about a computer with a clean install of windows 7 - and updates. Nothing else - running completely default settings - not joined to a domain with any GPOs that could impact it. I'm glad you don't have the problem. Could you share your IE GPO configuration with me so I can compare it and try to find the issue and its solution. There are LOTS of people on Google in numerous discussion groups looking for a solution, so you have an opportunity to be a savior to a lot of people here. I'm also not implying its a windows 7 problem, it is an IE8 problem. I can reproduce the symptoms on Vista too.
July 8th, 2010 7:55pm

Once more you are not understanding, it is not MY setup is anything special, as for GPO configs, that is not my area, I have office IT folks who handle that stuff, I am the support for the support staff. I do know that many networks do not use AD / policy's..as for googling it, you need to understand folks with issues post folks without do not. had it been a real issue with I.E. 8 you would have seen the "me too's here posting in this thread by now. Maybe YOU should be posting YOUR configs.
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July 8th, 2010 9:34pm

Once more you are not understanding, it is not MY setup is anything special, as for GPO configs, that is not my area, I have office IT folks who handle that stuff, I am the support for the support staff. I do know that many networks do not use AD / policy's..as for googling it, you need to understand folks with issues post folks without do not. had it been a real issue with I.E. 8 you would have seen the "me too's here posting in this thread by now. Maybe YOU should be posting YOUR configs. Sure. I'm running default configs. so install windows, then install updates. thats my config. Thanks for your input but you pretty much told me what I need to know. "as for GPO configs, that is not my area, I have office IT folks who handle that stuff". there is only so may ways to read that - and I read it as that you aren't in the inner workings of IT and therefor have no knowledge of the inner workings and configurations of which I speak. So your input is appreciated, but of no value to myself, or the many experiencing this issue. As for the lack of "me too's" you do realize that not everyone in the world has a tech nut subscription,,, right.... I'm sure you do. That being said, if you search technet for iexplore.exe and sort through the results, you will find others - again no solutions though. If you want to have one of your IT folks post here though, I would be interested in hearing from someone who knows what they're talking about.
July 9th, 2010 9:00pm

You are to funny dude. I am the top of food chain, I do not dirty my hands with "end users" and yes I am very much "in the loop", I just have much better things to do than worry with the small stuff. I worry with things like users creating folders / files and no one else can see them, users deleting 60 gigs of data off the servers. How to replace a Novell 4.22 box with ANYTHING but novell. And this forum does not require any technet or any other subscription to post here. As I would be the one the office / local support staff calls with any connection issues, as I control the Routers / DNS / Firewall / qmail servers / webdav boxes, I would hearing of this issue if it was present in a default build. Those folks in the offices do not post here as most have never heard of this forum..that is what they pay me for. I find the solutions for the many, that way they do not all spend time looking for the same answers. now you want talk linux ..I am your guy but exchange / AD / sharepoint and those other MS products (not since NT 3.x / 4 have I had to mess with windows Domains controllers.
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July 9th, 2010 10:44pm

Check your plugins and addons. Could be something there. Tools > Manage Add-ons.
July 10th, 2010 1:38pm

Check your plugins and addons. Could be something there. Tools > Manage Add-ons.
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July 10th, 2010 1:38pm

i think i just duplicated the situation by changing my home page to www.msn.com then quickly toggling IE8 open and closed repeatedly. it wasn't a very challenging experiment, guys. except normally i have my home page set to about:blank and could not duplicate it that way. this makes me think of TCP Connection Termination and so-called Half-Open Connections. for some reason, i am also reminded of Cracker Cows right now, but i cannot imagine why.
July 10th, 2010 2:42pm

i think i just duplicated the situation by changing my home page to www.msn.com then quickly toggling IE8 open and closed repeatedly. it wasn't a very challenging experiment, guys. except normally i have my home page set to about:blank and could not duplicate it that way. this makes me think of TCP Connection Termination and so-called Half-Open Connections. for some reason, i am also reminded of Cracker Cows right now, but i cannot imagine why.
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July 10th, 2010 2:42pm

Autocomplete dosn't work well in IE8.
July 10th, 2010 3:06pm

Autocomplete dosn't work well in IE8.
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July 10th, 2010 3:06pm

i wouldn't know. i turned that off too.
July 10th, 2010 3:13pm

i wouldn't know. i turned that off too.
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July 10th, 2010 3:13pm

Why?
July 10th, 2010 3:26pm

Why?
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July 10th, 2010 3:26pm

You are to funny dude. I am the top of food chain, I do not dirty my hands with "end users" and yes I am very much "in the loop", I just have much better things to do than worry with the small stuff. I worry with things like users creating folders / files and no one else can see them, users deleting 60 gigs of data off the servers. How to replace a Novell 4.22 box with ANYTHING but novell. And this forum does not require any technet or any other subscription to post here. As I would be the one the office / local support staff calls with any connection issues, as I control the Routers / DNS / Firewall / qmail servers / webdav boxes, I would hearing of this issue if it was present in a default build. Those folks in the offices do not post here as most have never heard of this forum..that is what they pay me for. I find the solutions for the many, that way they do not all spend time looking for the same answers. now you want talk linux ..I am your guy but exchange / AD / sharepoint and those other MS products (not since NT 3.x / 4 have I had to mess with windows Domains controllers. Thanks for sharing your job description, but it still in no way helps me or the others with this problem. If you read on, you will see another person has already been able to reproduce it and has posted here. if you have solution that would be great. Otherwise I think you're just waisting your time here and the time of others looking for solutions. I'm also sorry to hear that your support staff hasn't reported it to you. However that doesn't mean that the problem doesn't exist. It just means your support staff hasn't noticed, or bothered to report it. They could be firefox users too. I manage 2 IT guys and 100 users. Only 2 users reported the issue. I got to testing and duplicated it.Then I queried the office, and sure enough they all had the problem and just never reported it because it is easy enough to work around. Point being that just because you don't hear about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. That hear no evil see no evil is practice may work for some IT guys who are more concerned with their morning cup of joe and their muffin. That approach is typical of what I have seen in government. I on the other hand actively seek out any issues my users have and solve them. It makes them more productive, which makes my company more successful and secures all of our jobs.
July 10th, 2010 3:41pm

Check your plugins and addons. Could be something there. Tools > Manage Add-ons. i am not running any third party add-ons. we're talking a fresh install of windows with nothing else installed. I can also duplicate it running IE (with no add-ons). Believe me, I wish it were that simple.
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July 10th, 2010 3:42pm

Everythings working fine here, I tried to reproduce it. Two instances of iexplore 32 in the TM.
July 10th, 2010 3:48pm

Everythings working fine here, I tried to reproduce it. Two instances of iexplore 32 in the TM.
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July 10th, 2010 3:48pm

i think i just duplicated the situation by changing my home page to www.msn.com then quickly toggling IE8 open and closed repeatedly. it wasn't a very challenging experiment, guys. except normally i have my home page set to about:blank and could not duplicate it that way. this makes me think of TCP Connection Termination and so-called Half-Open Connections. for some reason, i am also reminded of Cracker Cows right now, but i cannot imagine why. You may be on to something there. I think it is more related to the crash/tab recovery feature in IE8, but that is just my gut feeling. If Microsoft actually let us shut it off i could test it. Sadly disabling it still doesn't turn it off, it just disables the prompt to restore your browser session. NICE! If firefox had some supported and fully featured GPO admin templates like IE, I could solve this problem very easily. :)
July 10th, 2010 3:56pm

Autocomplete dosn't work well in IE8. I agree. It only seems to work half the time. I ended up giving some of my users the google tool bar so they could use the auto fill feature in it (which is much better). I don't like the solution, but it works. Firefox does a much better job on that too.
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July 10th, 2010 3:59pm

My answer was to change the home page to advanced search. http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en
July 10th, 2010 4:01pm

My answer was to change the home page to advanced search. http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en
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July 10th, 2010 4:01pm

Hi ZackinMA, I could not reproduce this issue on my Windows 7 OEM (original equipment manufacturer) machine. For your reference, I set my homepage to www.microsoft.com with other default settings and then close and reopen the Internet Explorer (IE) window quickly. However, there were still only two iexplorer.exe processes listed. In this situation, please check if reset IE can resolve this issue: Note: the following steps will remove all of installed add-ons and reset IE to default settings. We need to reinstall the add-ons after resetting. 1. Click "Start", type "inetcpl.cpl" (without quotation marks) into “Search” bar and press "Enter" to open the “Internet Options” window. 2. Switch to the "Advanced" tab. 3. Click "Reset…" to reset Internet Explorer settings. 4. Check "Delete personal settings" box and click "Reset" to confirm the operation. 5. Click "Close" when the resetting process is complete. 6. Close the Internet Explorer window and restart IE to check the issue. For more information about how to troubleshoot the Internet Explorer 8 issue, please refer to the following article: You cannot view, access, or load some Web pages when you use Internet Explorer 8 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967897 Hope this helps. Regards, Linda Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
July 12th, 2010 8:49am

Hi ZackinMA, I could not reproduce this issue on my Windows 7 OEM (original equipment manufacturer) machine. For your reference, I set my homepage to www.microsoft.com with other default settings and then close and reopen the Internet Explorer (IE) window quickly. However, there were still only two iexplorer.exe processes listed. In this situation, please check if reset IE can resolve this issue: Note: the following steps will remove all of installed add-ons and reset IE to default settings. We need to reinstall the add-ons after resetting. 1. Click "Start", type "inetcpl.cpl" (without quotation marks) into “Search” bar and press "Enter" to open the “Internet Options” window. 2. Switch to the "Advanced" tab. 3. Click "Reset…" to reset Internet Explorer settings. 4. Check "Delete personal settings" box and click "Reset" to confirm the operation. 5. Click "Close" when the resetting process is complete. 6. Close the Internet Explorer window and restart IE to check the issue. For more information about how to troubleshoot the Internet Explorer 8 issue, please refer to the following article: You cannot view, access, or load some Web pages when you use Internet Explorer 8 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967897 Hope this helps. Regards, Linda Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. ” IE was in the default config after an install of windows 7 and all updates (if you read my prior posts). i tried your offered solution anyway, and it still behaves the same way. we're running Windows 7 enterprise x64 and seeing this behavior with the 32 bit version of IE.
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July 14th, 2010 5:49pm

I don't lik the new choices for deleting temporary internet files. Seems odd.
July 15th, 2010 4:33am

I don't lik the new choices for deleting temporary internet files. Seems odd.
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July 15th, 2010 4:33am

Hi ZackinMA, I have exactly the same issue. Brand new and strictly default installation of OEM Windows 7 on a 64-bit AMD Dell PC. IE8 and IE9 misbehave just as you described, with adverse effects on the cache that does not get cleaned on exit (very often there is still some explorer orphan session locking the TIF folder). Did you find a way to solve the issue? I can live with it but I would prefer to find a solution! Many thanks Cesare Brizio
January 2nd, 2011 2:49pm

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