[Hovhannes]

I've installed Windows XP Pro Service Pack 3 on my laptop and PC at home.

On my laptop I've fully formatted windows partition and performed fresh Windows XP Pro SP3 installation. After installation I noticed that hidden iexplore.exe process starts after system boot. After looking for startup entries in registry I found nothing related with iexplore.exe (I've 5 programs in HKLM\...\Run and know each of these programs, my printer software, display driver software and NOD32 antivirus). When I double-click my Internet Explorer icon, Windows opens another instance of iexplore.exe.

On my PC I had installed Windows XP Pro Service Pack 2. I installed Service Pack 3 using setup file from Microsoft download center (fullfile version). Again, after installing Service Pack 3, hidden iexplore.exe appears as on my laptop.

Please, give me advice, about how to get rid of this unneeded process, which only consumes RAM and does nothing (event doesn't try to send something to internet, I've checked with firewall)

Thanks forehand for any suggestions.

[zsdg07]

i doubt its the actual iexplorer.exe (Internet Explorer), and its probably something you dont' want there.. what happens when you try to end the process? does it restart? and I think theres other places in the registry to look for auto startup programs, just search the entire registry for iexplore.exe.

[Tech Geek]

go to task manager>processes check out for ieexplorer.exe and end process.

[Hovhannes]

go to task manager>processes check out for ieexplorer.exe and end process.

When I kill the process, it goes away, and doesn't start again.


Also I've examined loaded dlls in this iexplore.exe. It loads only basic system dlls like kernel32.dll,user32.dll,etc, approximately about 20 modules (too few for Internet Explorer). All dlls are signed by Microsoft Corporation.

i doubt its the actual iexplorer.exe (Internet Explorer), and its probably something you dont' want there.. what happens when you try to end the process? does it restart? and I think theres other places in the registry to look for auto startup programs, just search the entire registry for iexplore.exe.

No, it doesn't restart after killing via Task Manager. It is something related with Windows XP SP3, because it appears even at my fully formatted laptop after installing only Windows and nothing else.

[Krambo]

This happened to me and i discovered in the end it was spyware , i don't know how i got it but i used counterspy and it removed a couple of things and this stopped happening.

[narshorn]

This happened to me and i discovered in the end it was spyware , i don't know how i got it but i used counterspy and it removed a couple of things and this stopped happening.

This is not normal but sometimes using IE you can see 2 instances of iexplore.exe running, and still one stays even if you close every IE window properly !!!

You should use Codestuff Starter, and when this case presents, open Codestuff, select the processes tab, and properly identify the real iexplore.exe ( with the right click context menu : explore process folder). You have option to open folder containing the other executable. A proper hint will give you all informations to know if it's a simple bug or a real spyware.


Hope this helps


n A r

This post has been edited by narshorn: 28 July 2008 - 06:18 PM