Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer with XP SP3 sucks!
No, it's not one of the The World Sucks rants, it's actually very serious. I was terribly annoyed that after installing Windows XP SP3 my Internet Explorer 7 browser would (sometimes) freeze when closing tabs. I could replicate the bug easily enough by folowwing these steps:
At this time Internet Explorer would freeze with no error message. Waiting for a few seconds I could access the context menu on the taskbar button and choose Close or click on the X Close button, but everything inside the Internet Explorer window would be inactive. If I would switch tasks back and forth, the IE window would appear completely blank inside.
Now, whenever you look for the solution for this you get three answers:
I did all this and nothing changed! I've reinstalled all addons. I've reinstalled IE7. I've switched to IE8 beta! Nothing worked. Then I proceeded in uninstalling all addons, see what happends. Finally, it wouldn't cause any issues. It was just after I've uninstalled Google Toolbar! I suspect the cause for the bug is coming from the popup blocker which interprets tabs as popups and tries to close them. Then there is the setting in GT that is trying to preserve any software from modifying its settings. Maybe that is why -extoff doesn't affect it!
Just to be sure I installed it again and tested the bug and I could replicate it. Something in Windows XP Service Pack 3 messes Google Toolbar up!
Bottom line: uninstall Google Toolbar until I can find out which part of it actually causes the bug.
- Open Internet Explorer
- Go to https://siderite.dev
- Scrollwheel click on Sign in, thus opening it in another tab
- Wait until the title of the second tab changes to Redirecting (because I have the cookie from a previous login)
- Press F5 (Refresh) in the first tab
- Click on the second tab and close it while the first tab is refreshing
At this time Internet Explorer would freeze with no error message. Waiting for a few seconds I could access the context menu on the taskbar button and choose Close or click on the X Close button, but everything inside the Internet Explorer window would be inactive. If I would switch tasks back and forth, the IE window would appear completely blank inside.
Now, whenever you look for the solution for this you get three answers:
- Check the Warn me when closing multiple tabs option in the Internet Explorer tabs settings.
- Run IExplore.exe with the -extoff command line parameter which will disable all add-ons and this will tell you if the addons are causing this
- Check for spyware/malware
I did all this and nothing changed! I've reinstalled all addons. I've reinstalled IE7. I've switched to IE8 beta! Nothing worked. Then I proceeded in uninstalling all addons, see what happends. Finally, it wouldn't cause any issues. It was just after I've uninstalled Google Toolbar! I suspect the cause for the bug is coming from the popup blocker which interprets tabs as popups and tries to close them. Then there is the setting in GT that is trying to preserve any software from modifying its settings. Maybe that is why -extoff doesn't affect it!
Just to be sure I installed it again and tested the bug and I could replicate it. Something in Windows XP Service Pack 3 messes Google Toolbar up!
Bottom line: uninstall Google Toolbar until I can find out which part of it actually causes the bug.
Comments
You might be right. I did meet the problem again after the google toolbar removal, only less frequent. I can link it to Sun's Java JRE or/and Flash applets. Could it be that XP SP3 messes up the Internet Explorer addon system?! That would suck big time!
SideriteGoogle Toolbar for sure is not the only addon causing the problem. I have exactly the same problem and go through the exactly same procedures you have done trying to fix it except I have never install Google Toolbar on my machine before. I have try disable all add-ons but still getting the problem.
Nelson