iexplorer.exe hangs boot process

I was at my dad's yesterday, trying to set up his "new" (old) computer.
Let me start by saying my dad can't spell cpu., he's 82 yrs old and trying
to learn to use a computer, email, ebay, etc. So it helps if we are looking
at the things on the screen when he calls me for help.

It's a Dell Optiplex GX200, /w an 80G hd. I have reformatted the drive and loaded a new/clean copy of XP Pro (SP1) on it and a coorperate copy of
Symantec Antivirus software. He has a build in 56kp moden and a dialup
ISP (Earthlink). I built this computer at my house, and ran it on my wireless
network for about a week before taking it to my dad's.

After about 2 hrs. on line showing him how to get into ebay and a few other things, we decided to go to lunch. So we disconnected from the ISP, shut
all applications down, and turned off the computer. When we got back and
turned on the computer, the initial desktop came up pretty quickly, but it
took for ever for us to be able to do anything. Even get the menu to appear
after pressing the start button.

I went into Task Manager and found that Iexplore.exe was consuming
95% ish of the cpu time. (Note: We do not have IE starting automatically
on boot. I don't have any app start on boot except for our antivirus
program. And of course the sound control which does so all the time.

I deleted Iexplore.exe task, and all the commands we'd been trying to
give started to execuite, like bring up solitare, etc.

With things now running smoothly, I shut down, hoping that what ever
was causing iexplore.exe to execute would be rewritten and not do it.
This didn't work. When we rebooted, the system still hung at the initial
desktop and took a very long time 3 to 5 minutes for us to be able to
do anything. I always had to bring up task manager to turn iexplore.exe
off.

I searched the archives and found a post about deleting cookies, cash, and
passwords. I've done that, to no avail.

When I boot my machine, iexplorer.exe isn't in the process list in task
manager, until to start IE. (Which I very seldom do.) I usually use
Netscape.

Anyone have any ideas of what to do to stop iexplore.exe for starting
automatically?

TIA.

John

 

Arie,

Thanks for your suggestion. I guess I'm either too much of an engineer,
I want to know why things happen, or too cheap, I ain't going to buy a
new OS, or something else, like I'm old school. This is a tool, not a
money pit. Too much software I'm using will/may have problems, and
again I can not afford to keep upgrading all my software. I restore
cars for a hobbie. I've got tools that are over 30 yr old. I can still
get replacement part, and new attachments for them. I don't have to
spend a ton of money to purchase all new tools, everytime I want a
new socket or wrench. I couldn't afford to replace the 12+ sets of
sockets, 9+ sets of wrenches, 3 sets of screwdrivers, nor all my speciality
tools.

I've had the same identical configuration running at my house for 3 yrs.
So if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I've had and heard of too many others having problems after applying
a patch. I've had many a server crash at work after we did an update.
So since neither my machine at home (which is connect via cable) or
the one at my dad's (dial up) is left on-line 24/7. When I'm not using
my machine, I turn it off, assuming that I'm not going to be getting right
back on it.

I realize a lot of the hot fixes, SPs, etc. from MS are for security purposes.
But I really have had very few problems, like the one that I stated at the
begining of this thread.

I spent several hours surfing the net, from my house, for solutions to the
problems. Then I went over to my dad's, loaded with documents, and several
programs to try and solve his problem, iexplore.exe hanging on boot.

Iexplore.exe is not supposed to load at boot time.

So after spending many hours running anti spyware and anti virus scanns,
looking through the registry, and checking various startup parameters,
I solved the problem. Not with any of that stuff.

I created a restore point of this afternoon, with the problem. Then I
went back to the last know good restore point (last friday). That worked!
Problem gone! The only thing that I've found wrong, was that the last
update for my antivirus software was lost. No problem, simply do a
live update to Symantic, problem solved!

While I did fix it, I'd still like to know why iexplore.exe was hanging at
boot time. I did check IE and made sure that it did not have dial when
internet is not present. I believe it was under the Connections tab.
But since I don't have dial up here at home, I can't verify it.

Something else I'd like to understand, is what all is saved/restored
with the restore points? Is it just the registry? Is it all users settings?
(Neither machine is set up to have multiple operators.)

John

 

Hello John,

Besides the registry, file types SR monitors: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/sr/sr/monitored_file_extensions.asp

And yes, for all users.

 

charlesvar,

Thanks for the info. I'll check out the article!

Much appreciated.

John