[Samrc]

Worked on my mother's machine this weekend and I am thoroughly confounded.

She opens IE8 and the toolbars are missing. There is an area that shows whatever was behind the active window and it never fills with Menu Bar, Navigation Bar, can't print, search, go forward, backward, see favorites, links bar, nothing! (Window looks like a screen shot of the background image in that header area of IE.)
Click to open IE 2nd time, same thing.
Eventually, one time out of 5 or 6 you do get the toolbars she has defined and she can actually be on the web.

I have researched till my eyes were red. Have not faced this issue before!
- Tried the MS fix it site: h**p://support.microsoft.com/kb/962963
- Tried the regedit recommendation and others offered on web.
- Removed Google toolbar from system (she was running yahoo and google, told her to choose only one)
- Turned off all add-ons, then put them back on...
- General cleaning/tweaking of settings did not help
- Reset to default IE settings (clearing all passwords, temp files, etc in process)
No joy. No change.

I put in FireFox, added the flash, shockwave and adobe plugins.
Made it her default browser and imported her IE favorites.
After telling her how good FF is, it loads home page quickly and fully.
She is pleased and says as long as she can see her info, she is willing to use it instead of IE!
Click a link and it just hangs.
The new tab or new window just hangs and never loads.
OMG! What else???

She has XP Pro, SP3, up-to-date.
Running Avast protection with Komodo firewall, both up-to-date.
She plays downloaded/installed legitimate hidden object games from sites like BigFishGames.com etc, basic shopping on big sites (JCPenney, QVC, etc) and emails. Wanders a bit but not dangerously. Careful about where she goes.

I left her like that (had to go home) and will work on it remotely til the weekend when I can sit with it again.
- I am going to do full scans on the system with malware bytes and other yuck removers just to be sure nothing snuck past defenses.
- I will remove her yahoo toolbar and maybe other add-ons too.


What else should I look at?
Should I remove/replace IE 8?
Considered doing a system roll back if she has the ability turned on.
She thinks this problem started when IE8 was loaded but can't be sure.
(Did not tell me when it first started.)

ANY and I do mean ANY suggestions would be welcome!
HELP please.

This post has been edited by Samrc: 28 June 2010 - 09:33 AM

[TCH-Bruce]

Download and run MalwareBytes from malwarebytes.org just to be sure there isn't some hidden malware on her machine.

[Samrc]

Quote

I left her like that (had to go home) and will work on it remotely til the weekend when I can sit with it again.
- I am going to do full scans on the system with malware bytes and other yuck removers just to be sure nothing snuck past defenses.
- I will remove her yahoo toolbar and maybe other add-ons too.

What else should I look at?
Should I remove/replace IE 8?

yep. I agree!
I mentioned in the post that was the first thing I will do this weekend.

Anything else you would suggest?

[TCH-Bruce]

Well duh on me. I thought I read the whole thing. Sorry Sam. I have IE8 on my machine but don't use it. I am a Firefox user primarily and use Chrome from time to time.

Maybe you should just remove it and reinstall it.

[SteveW]

Maybe try checking the hosts file at C:\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc\hosts for unwanted modifications. A malicious or wrong entry in hosts overrides any DNS lookups, which can make sites fail to load, such as if a site that's supposed to be on the web is instead pointed to localhost. That would affect both browsers.

The Firefox add-on Live HTTP Headers can show you in real time whether FF is actually sending out the requests, which can help troubleshoot.

When a site fails to respond, it is possible for the local DNS cache to save the "note" that the site is unreachable in the cache, which will prevent the system even trying again until the time to live (TTL) of the entry expires, which can be as long as a day. Easiest way to flush the cache is to restart the PC.

A command line utility program called tracert (part of Windows) can show you the path from your PC to the destination server. It will show timeouts, etc., which will help determine whether the PC is sending out requests at all, another troubleshooting aid to help determine whether requests are actually being sent, and at what point the hangup is occurring.

Also check the firewall log, if there is one. Some firewalls have allow-traffic rules based on a signature of the executable of the requesting program. So if IE or FF are updated to a new version, the signature changes, the firewall program considers it a new program, the old rule allowing the program no longer applies, and the new version is blocked by default.

This post has been edited by SteveW: 05 July 2010 - 09:12 AM

[carbonize]

For IE8 try removing it and then reinstalling it. there is a problem I posted a fix for on my blog which is open up a command prompt (Windows key + R then type in CMD and hit run) and put in regsvr32 actxprxy.dll and hit enter. As to the Firefox issues it does sound like a possible malware issue or messed up DNS cache/Hosts file.Download CCLeaner and run it to clear up waste files and the DNS cache. Now run something like Malwarebytes to check for any malware. As to the hosts file just open it up in wordpad to see if something has been added.