IE6 slow, cpu utilization high after recent security updates (via automatic update)

[Michael Taylor]

I installed the following items:

Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 6 SP1 (KB824145) - 12th
November
Security Update for Microsoft Windows XP (KB828035) - 15th November

......both via automatic update. Since installing the security update for XP,
Internet Explorer has been noticeably slower. It's taking a long time for
pages to be displayed - it seems to wait for a while and then the page with
all its elements displays at once - during the pause, the cpu utilization
goes to 100%.

Also, when installed applications such as Quickbooks display items using an
IE browser window within the product, the application shows a similar slow
down.

I'm on 512k broadband. Other internet applications are unaffected.

Has anyone else noticed this? Can anyone offer a solution?

Thanks
Mike

 

[Sam Neal]

I had a similar problem. I installed "Ad-Aware 6" (free)
from downloads.com and it fixed the problem. Give it a
try. It detects spyware that might be leeching onto
programs (especially internet).

 

[Michael Taylor]

Thanks Sam. I've been using Ad-Aware for several months now. I cleared the
temporary internet cache and history, and now it's performance has returned
to normal. Maybe it was just a coincidence. I clear the cache every few
weeks.

 

[Michael Taylor]

This problem has come back to haunt me.
Again I'm seeing high cpu utilization, giving a notable pause before a full
page is rendered. Even hitting the back button to view pages already just
viewed has the same effect, and they're not ASP pages, just normal HTML.
I've run Ad-aware, and Spy-bot. I always have Norton AV 2004 running, and
all my emails are scanned by Messagelabs prior to me receiving them. I'm as
sure as I can be that I don't have an trojans, virus, worms etc. I believe
this problem is to do with the recent updates to IE.
Can anyone suggest how to resolve this?
Thanks
Mike

 

[Michael Taylor]

I decided to do a System Restore. That fixed the problem. Then I re-applied
all the changes I had made until the problem returned. The culprit was
Norton AV 2004. I found this article on Symantec's web site....

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPOR...Document&prod=&ver=&src=sg&pcode=&svy=&csm=no

It says they haven't got a fix, but there are some workarounds, one of which
worked for me. In summary, you can try deleteing windows temporary files,
temporary internet files, turning off "scanning within compressed files" in
auto-protect, or adding *.js to the list of excluded files under
auto-protect. The last one is what worked for me - instant improvement, no
re-boot required.

So my apologies to Microsoft. I should keep a better log of activity. I
might have realised the cause much sooner.

Mike