Hi,
I've been having some performance problems with IE 7.0 experiencing delays and temporary PC lockups during startup, shutdown, and application switching (away and back again). I've tracked the problem down to the "Active Desktop" setting in the Critical Object control.
Report below, hope its useful to you :D
Ian.
Windows XP SP2
Agnitum Outpost Firewall Pro - 6.0.2284.253.0485
Plugins:
Host protection: enabled
Anti-spyware: turned off (AVG Free on system)
Web Control: off
Internet Explorer - 7.0.5730.11
Problem: IE7.0 experiences very long delays and locks up the Explorer desktop and toolbar while it starts, or is closed down. The Explorer desktop also locks up on change of window focus change via alt-tab to another running application, e.g. Firefox ;-) Duration of lockup 10 seconds, and no ability to use the PC during this period.
Settings tested (by clearing the setting, applying changes to Outpost config, then starting/stopping IE7:
Critical object control
- Internet Settings, OK
- IE Settings, OK
- IE plug-ins, OK
- Shell Extensions, OK
- Shell Critical Entries, OK
- Application Restrictions, OK
- Active Desktop, Problem!
Disabling Active Desktop protection allows a normal startup behaviour of IE 7.0
Here are some log entries with "Active Desktop" protection enabled:
2008/03/02 19:20:34 [explorer.exe:3360] start process 00000D8A/2400 "C:PROGRAM FILESINTERNET EXPLORERIEXPLORE.EXE"
2008/03/02 19:20:34 process info 00000D8A/2400 <- 00000420/3360 [C:PROGRAM FILESINTERNET EXPLORERIEXPLORE.EXE] ""C:Program FilesInternet Exploreriexplore.exe" "
2008/03/02 19:20:45 [explorer.exe:3360] start process 00000D96/2532 "C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32VERCLSID.EXE"
2008/03/02 19:20:45 process info 00000D96/2532 <- 00000420/3360 [C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32VERCLSID.EXE] "/S /C {2559A1F4-21D7-11D4-BDAF-00C04F60B9F0} /I {000214E6-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} /X 0x401"
2008/03/02 19:20:45 [verclsid.exe:2532] process terminated 00000D96/2532
2008/03/02 19:20:45 [explorer.exe:3360] start process 00000D98/3752 "C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32VERCLSID.EXE"
2008/03/02 19:20:45 process info 00000D98/3752 <- 00000420/3360 [C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32VERCLSID.EXE] "/S /C {2559A1F5-21D7-11D4-BDAF-00C04F60B9F0} /I {000214E6-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} /X 0x401"
2008/03/02 19:20:45 [verclsid.exe:3752] process terminated 00000D98/3752
and "Active Desktop" protection disabled:
2008/03/02 19:18:59 [explorer.exe:3360] start process 00000D6E/3100 "C:PROGRAM FILESINTERNET EXPLORERIEXPLORE.EXE"
2008/03/02 19:18:59 process info 00000D6E/3100 <- 00000420/3360 [C:PROGRAM FILESINTERNET EXPLORERIEXPLORE.EXE] ""C:Program FilesInternet Exploreriexplore.exe" "
2008/03/02 19:19:00 [explorer.exe:3360] start process 00000D7A/224 "C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32VERCLSID.EXE"
2008/03/02 19:19:00 process info 00000D7A/224 <- 00000420/3360 [C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32VERCLSID.EXE] "/S /C {2559A1F4-21D7-11D4-BDAF-00C04F60B9F0} /I {000214E6-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} /X 0x401"
2008/03/02 19:19:01 [verclsid.exe:224] process terminated 00000D7A/224
2008/03/02 19:19:01 [explorer.exe:3360] start process 00000D7C/1292 "C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32VERCLSID.EXE"
2008/03/02 19:19:01 process info 00000D7C/1292 <- 00000420/3360 [C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32VERCLSID.EXE] "/S /C {2559A1F5-21D7-11D4-BDAF-00C04F60B9F0} /I {000214E6-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} /X 0x401"
2008/03/02 19:19:01 [verclsid.exe:1292] process terminated 00000D7C/1292
Notice the 10 second delay. Can provide more detailed system information on request.
I was noticing the same thing on mine, I dont usually use IE so it didnt make much of a difference to me. Although, I was noticing that the Host Protection was causing alot of weird system chaos...
For instance...
shortly after boot-up, open Task Manager and the User Name field was not populated. Also, certain apps would load however the notification area icon (by the clock) would not display nor would they behave properly afterwards. Most noticeably my active sync for the mobile phone.
While browsing file systems in explorer, system would hang for a few seconds before displaying folder contents. This would happen randomly, regardless of folder location or size.
Certain windows functions, like system time, task manager and display properties would take upwards of 30 seconds to launch.
There were other weird system anomalies as well - those were the most noticeable. Of course, disabling host protection fixed everything... that's not really the route I wanted to go; also updating to 6.0.2284 seemed to help abit.
It probably has to do with my settings as well, I am one of those paranoid security users... ;)
Hello HypoThermia,
Thanks for the update. Let us know what Agnitum advise and if you are able to resolve the issue.
Caleb,
Not sure where you turned off the automatic scan of network drives (OS or firewall?), but there were some hard coded network locations that were part of Explorer's User Shell Folder:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurre ntVersionExplorerUser Shell Folders
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurr entVersionExplorerUser Shell Folders
(The forum appears to have inserted a space into CurrentVersion)
Clearing them out cured the problem of the 10 second delay. This was my works laptop (it doesn't use OF), and these locations all have sensible (i.e. non-hardcoded local machine directories) values on my home PC where OF lives, works and plays.
Turning the Active Desktop protection back on will quickly let you know if it is causing the problem ;)
Ian.
All the problems I was experiencing were directly related to Host Protection, I had it customized to Prompt for several of the Suspicious activities, once it was set to the default level everything seemed to start working correctly. I also unticked Active Desktop as you had suggested, which may or may not have helped anything - tried to many things at once in an attempt to figure it out. And, now that its working - I dont want to mess with it... ;) Although during the freeze ups and system stalls ACS never really peaked... even though I was expecting it to. It seems to idle around 2 to 10% depending on system activity.
~Hypothermia~ I had turned off the automatic lookup and scan of network drives on my laptop - as I definitely move through a fair share of networks during my weekly routine (Hence my desire for security).
The system slowdown seems to be a new problem with OP 6.2284.
I had it too, but in a bit different way.
I didn't noticed anything, but as soon as i looked up in the Taskmanager i saw that acs.exe ( outpost process ) was using 30% of my processor while i wasn't doing anything at all ( just running MSN ).
For me the solution was simple, revert back to OP 4 :p
Hmmm... interesting. I believe that active desktop is in use on my PC because I've got a JPEG image as my wallpaper - certainly I'm not tracking any web content or making use of a "live" desktop in any other way.
One thing I've noticed from using my work laptop (with a roaming profile) is that it introduces 10 second delays when disconnected from the network (in most of the places that you describe). After a search of the internet I found it was down to a network share being defined in my profile that was accessed by explorer and from menus etc. These network shares take 10 seconds to timeout when they're not available and delay the system.
While its a bit much to say that every 10 second delay is because of a network share - it certainly improved my offline experience.
Ian.
Now forwarded on to Agnitum via support.
Ian.
 I could use some help again...
 Lost Licences |
IE 7.0 - 10 second freeze of PC