Internet Explorer works fine once I have it open, and click on links that keep me in same window. However, if I do any of the following, it can take up to a minute before IE responds:
Open IE for the first time, or open a second instance of it (by clicking on icon, or quicklaunch bar, etc)
File | New Window
Right-click on link, Open in New Window
Type an address into address bar
Click a link that opens a new window
Click a link in an email
Obviously, all (except #4) are related. But what is it (besides a pain in the ass)?
Really like to be able to fix this. Anyone have this happen, or can help me?
In case it matters, running IE6.0 on Windows 2000 Professional, wireless cable modem connection.
That’s because you are using Internet Explorer, which requires you to “open a second instance” with all the background overhead that involves.
More modern browsers such as Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, etc. have a feature called “tabbed browsing” which allows you to open multiple ‘tabs’, each connecting to a separate website, all within a single window. It’s very handy, and once they’ve used it, most people are never satisfied with the old way again.
Sorry I can’t help with the specific problem you report – that’ll take someone more familiar with IE than myself. But it may not be a ‘problem’ – just the overhead inevitable in starting a second copy of IE running.
Thanks. There may be “better” browsers out there (though Netscape is a PoS), but this is definitely a problem, in that it was working fine two weeks ago, and that I don’t have similar problems on my other computers running IE.
I did run AdAware, totally cleaned my system (or so I hope), but still no go. Hmmmph!
Are you sure a second window is another instance of the application? I mean, I can’t imagine going back to tabless browsing, but I think that even IE simply opens a new window with the same program running in memory.
Push that little slide-bar-thingy a bit to the right.
Keep in mind, the further you push that little slide-bar-thingy to the right, the more disk space you are going to be using when you use IE. After you change that setting and press OK, you might need to close down your IE and restart it.
If you restart and things are better, voila. If not, you probably want to go back and set your IE cache back to what it was before.
I can’t say for sure, since I stopped using IE some time ago. They may have improved this since then.
But at that time, using IE under NT, opening another IE Window and then checking in the Task Manager showed a whole second set of the IE tasks running. So it seemed to me that IE was going thru the entire overhead of running a second copy of the program.
I remember IE having an option that allowed you to select whether a new window ran in the same process or got its own process. I don’t know if that’s still an option.
rexnervous, what configuration are you using? (processor, ram, os etc) I am running WIN98SE, 1800+, 512 MB ram and this problem appears when I am doing some intensive processing in the background (like processing video files) and then remains until I restart the computer. My guess is that the new window takes much longer to get to the point where it unfreezes. In other words, at first it was freezing for a fraction of an instant but not, with resources low, it takes longer to do the same process. What, if anything, has changed in your computer?
If all else fails, search the knowledge base at the Microsoft Support site. They have a rather extensive collection of FAQs and articles. (If the link doesn’t work try http://support.microsoft.com/)
My inital guess would be the lack of a tab feature causing redundent resource use. Since you said it worked fine 2 weeks ago, I suggest you clean with Spybot then look at the programs currently running. Try typing “msinfo32” (no quotes) under “run…” instead of the three finger salute. IMO it’s probably spyware but I haven’t used IE in a while.
Did you do anything significant around the time this started happening?
There is also a small possiblility there might be a incorrect entry in the registry but I don’t want to scare you into mucking about in there. Check the two links I provided first.
You could always switch to another browser but I gather your just trying to fix this problem. Hope this helps!
As far as I know, not much has changed on my computer.
I am beginning to think it has to do with Explorer in general (for instance, I notice the same kind of slowdown when opening folders on my hard drive).
I did run AdAware.
Basically, I’ve given up. So that led me to try two new browsers:
Opera 7.x: I didn’t really like this, i’m sure it’s ok, but somewhat confusing interface. Plus i had the free version, so had that stupid banner running. Verdict: meh.
Mozilla Firebird: what a SWEET browser. Simple, blazing fast, easy to understand interface. Bonus points for the best View Source i’ve ever seen. Verdict: my browser of choice (for most things - some things I need to use IE for, if Mozilla doesn’t support it)