I'm mad , sad , and badly treated ... by IE7 . I thought Firefox was safe, and now boo-hoo, it's crashing too!

You KNOW there's a looooooooong post coming ...

BUT FIRST - this related question?
Does anyone know what this reg entry is, please:
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-1659004503-492894223-725345543-1004\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_LOCALMACHINE_LOCKDOWN\iexplore.exe!=W=1

Only Spybot S&D has picked it up of all my gazillions of spyware, malware and trojan scanners.

You wanna list of 'em? OK:
CCleaner
XCleaner
Trojan Hunter
Ewido
AVG Anti-Spyware
LavaSoft Ad-Aware & AdWatch+

BTW - all my 'puter specs are in my profile if you need 'em.

Why am I telling you all this ... well, I've now been searching for what seems a lifetime since my IE7 started crashing in the same manner as marcoolio and a growing population of sufferers. I think this reg entry may be related -- especially when I saw an entire thread about it on the Spybot Forum.

I've been participating in and lurking on numerous tekkie boards for a clue about how to fix this. There seem to be as many so-called 'solutions' as there are advice-givers.

The problem is NOTHING works. Not for me. Not for the posters of the problems. Oh, yes, sure, some so-called fixes SEEM to work. Then - whoosh - the problem returns. It's Hang City.

The frustrating thing is that there seems to be no pattern to when it happens. I've read about checking and unchecking ActiveX boxes in IE7 settings. I've read about deleting various .dll files. In fact I've read a score of 'wise words' and the majority of people still have the problem. All over the world. I still have the problem. And now it's spread to Slimbrowser and to Firefox - which I thought was trotting along unharmed.

In my case I noticed it after downloading the latest IE7 about 6 weeks ago. Before that everything was fine. I hardly use IE7 for browsing; I prefer Firefox for many reasons. But -- R U listening dear Catweazle? -- as a website designer I need to do some cross-browser testing at numerous points in the build. MS has the market share and all new bundles include IE7, so please don't tell me to go back to IE6. As someone in one of these threads has already pointed out, IE7 is integrated.

I've now read enough postings and ineffective solutions to conclude this is NOT a browser problem. My guess is [no, I don't know enough for it to be a guess or even a hunch] ... my stab in the dark is ... that it's a GENERIC MS or Windows problem.

So HERE's MY PLEA! My DESPERATE PLEA!!!
Can some VERY SENIOR DANI PERSON who may have some corridor to Gatesville or at the very least who can talk their language ... Can they PLEASE try to find out what the problem might be.

According to various newsgroups and forums both independent and connected to various products ... this problem has been going on since IE7 was in Beta and has continued right up to this very moment.

It's beyond a joke. It's crapola on a stick. I can post a HIT log, I can painstakingly go through my complete system for you. But honestly, dear Dani's, I don't think any one person's 'puter will hold the key. Surely MS must KNOW about this ...

PLEASE can someone 'official' from here try talking to them at some senior level. Just out of interest it would be good to know their answer.
And PLEASE - if you do contact them - don't be content with a reply that asks for the specifics. I repeat: THIS IS A PROBLEM THAT TRANSCENDS INDIVIDUAL CASES.

I won't change anything or delete anything until I hear back from you loverly guys and gals. Meantime, I'll resign myself to losing work, and another day of constant browser hang.

A huge adorable bouquet of advance thanks to you lovely gurus whoever you are. - others of lesser than senior guru status need not apply

Have you run any RootKit detection and removal on your system?

Run this:

http://research.pandasoftware.com/bl...ntiRootkit.zip

Hi TT4Tians and thanks so much for replying, and please forgive my belated response. Have been dealing with a dying, then dead power supply unit in my CPU, which is now fixed. Now I'm way behind on deadlines, so will return asap. Meanwhile, I think I see others are having the same problem with IE7. My theory is that IE6 was built to integrate with XP [which is what I'm running] and IE7 integrates with Vista [which I wouldn't touch till they completely debug it]. When fewer people took up Vista than anticipated, MS decided to push IE7 as a stand-alone but it must be riddled with applet and 3rd party program incompatibilities. One of these seems to concern parent applications re browsers so that it's almost impossible to run Firefox as a default, for example, and then try to open IE7. Now, honestly, a browser should not take up to 5 minutes to open ... should it?!!!!

Anyway ... lemme get these deadlines and -- in the words of the Governator - I'll be back!

Yea know what you mean.I don't quite like IE integrated in Bill is always trying to shove crap down our throats.i liked when i could uninstall it if i desired.My printer didn't work right till HP put out a patch after IE7 install i don't use it i like firefox.IE7 is slow though your right on that.

Hi again!

Okay, ran rootcheck and AVG Anti-Root and everything's coming up clean.

As I've said ... I've been lurking and participating in a couple of tekkie sites with posts from all over the world -- lots of people are having the exact same problem even though all their systems and configurations and allied programs are different.

The only conclusion anyone can make is that this is NOT a system-specific problem. There's obviously a major problem with IE7. What I want to know is ... is DaniWeb willing to coordinate complaints and open a direct line of communication with Microsoft? My guess is that a message from a tech forum collectively will carry more weight than any of us individually doing it.

A quick trawl through the recent messages on this thread about this problem will reveal that all the normal fixes just don't work. We can't all be wrong!!!

I'm at the point where I'm going to remove IE7 and stick with IE6. The stupid thing is that I won't be able to test my clients' web work on IE7, which is being bundled with new machines.

Please, I BEG you, can DaniWeb take the initiative and relay this basket of IE7 issues directly with Microsoft.

Thanks again for all your help.

Cheers
Beth