Slow Browsing/crashing on IE8

[richmelvin]

Hey all, as the title suggests my IE (vrsn 8) is very much prone to freezing/crashing/extreme slowness.

 

I have however seen improvements since I ran the following steps on Sunday (21.07.13). However its still bad and I would be most grateful for any advice you folks can offer.

 

Ran Malwarebytes (vrsn 1.75)

Ran Spybot search & Destroy (Vrsn 1.6.2)

Ran Security Essentials Virus Check

Ran Defrag

Ran Disk Check

Installed and ran CCleaner

Deleted Temp Int files, cookies etc.

Deleted plenty of files releasing 3gb in space

 

I have a net speed of 5.6mb and have 23.9GB of free disk space (130GB used). I use Windows XP on a desktop PC from DELL which is about 10 years old. I use Security Essentials as my Firewall and Anti Virus.

 

Only thing that came up from the above steps was Spybot found an entry named "Fraud.Codec.x3" which it stated it couldnt immediately delete as it was in use, a message Ive never had from Spybot before. It removed the threat upon next start up. Their website offers the following description 'Fraud.Codec.x3 is a malware that pretends to be a revolutionary media codec. This fake codec is made to transport advertising only. It is completely useless'.

 

Ive also 'unticked' a handful of processes from running at startup. Checked them out on processlibrary first and they seemed uneccessary (hopefully).

 

Any help or advice that could be offered will be most gratefully received.

 

Many thanks

 

Rich

[KenB]

Hi and welcome to ExTS

 

XP originally came with IE6 ( I think ) and IE 8 would have been installed at a later date.

It is possible to delete IE8 from Add/Remove and the system will revert to the earlier version.

 

You can then re-install IE8.

 

Give this a try.

[richmelvin]

Hi Ken, thank you for replying, I see your on the Wirral, Im in Ellesmere Port, weird!

 

I will give the re-install a go, will I lose my Favourites? (I have a lot!)

 

Also, a side effect of all my tinkering seems to be that no website 'Remembers me' any longer, if i hit the first letter of my Username or Password and it will populate but Im usually kept looged in all the time, on Facebook for example. Any thoughts on that at all?

 

Many thanks

 

Rich

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, if you want to be sure you keep all your favourites, before you start the uninstall and reinstall of IE8, you need to export them to a folder, which you can create first, say for instance on the desktop or in your documents, for the purpose.

To export the favourites, first click on "File" at top left, then select "Import/Export." in the next window it asks what you want to do next, select "Export to a file" then click next, it then asks what you want to export, select "Favourites" and next select where from, then after the next browse to the folder you created earlier.

 

Once you have uninstalled IE8 and rolled it back to IE7 or earlier, you can reinstall IE8 from Windows updates website, which is maybe the best to ensure a new and good version.

Once it is reinstalled you then reverse the process and import your favourites from the folder or file you put them in earlier.

 

Hope that is of help,

 

Nev.

[KenB]

I see your on the Wirral, Im in Ellesmere Port,

I am just outside Heswall :)

Even more weird .....I bought a book on eBay and the seller lived in the next road to me !!

 

Nev has explained about exporting favourites :)

 

side effect of all my tinkering seems to be that no website 'Remembers me'

Have you got it set to auto-delete cookies when you close ?

[richmelvin]

Hey Ken, hope you didnt have to pay postage on the book!

 

Please excuse my uselessness here but Im not sure how to check on the auto delete of cookies, I know its set to auto delete history if that helps?

 

Thanks, again!

[Plastic Nev]

Hi again, yes that is the setting Ken meant, I was going to leave that side of your troubles till we had resolved the other problems, hopefully by the uninstall and reinstall. Lets see if that works for you first, we can worry about log ins later.

 

Nev.

[KenB]

I know its set to auto delete history if that helps?

Un-check the box - see if that helps.

 

================

 

Did you delete IE8 and re-install ?

[richmelvin]

hey guys, having a bit of a nightmare with this. Basically it seems it cant be done! The link below explains in the ins and outs but ultimately I cant see how to get it done. Might be time for a new PC..nervous breakdown approaching...!

[seedy21]

Hi Richmelvin

 

This may help you by resetting IE instead of a Reinstalling it.

 

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-vista/reset-internet-explorer-8-settings

[richmelvin]

Thats great, thank you for that, worth a go!

 

Any thoughts on re-setting my PC to a particular point in time, i.e before I ran Disk Clean, CCleaner etc? Seems like a great idea but not sure if its known to be successful or not?

 

Thanks - Rich

[seedy21]

Hi Rich

 

Please have a go at resetting IE before you attempted to role your system back to a previous state.

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306084