Church

Ok, here's the deal. IE is constantly running in the background at all times, even when its not open. When I Ctr-Alt-Del and close it, it reopens itself, consistently running at about 25k system usage. I've tried using hijackthis, but I'm afraid to delete anything for lack of description. Also, there is nothing strange running in my startup options either. Please, this is such a memory hog and I don't know what it is!

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Through counter-intelligence, it should be possible to pinpoint potential trouble makers, and neutralize them.

Lasereth

Shouldn't IE constantly be open? IE isn't just the web browser, it's the browser used to go through all of Window's folders. So if you're ever messing around in Windows period, it should be open. I could be blatantly wrong though.

*EDIT* I'm talking about explorer.exe; not sure if you are or not. Sorry if my info is useless.

-Lasereth

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"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

kofspades

explorer.exe should be constantly running (on a standard install). However, iexplore.exe should not.

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Church

ditto. but yeah, I have both explorer.exe and iexplorer.exe running at all times for some reason.

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Through counter-intelligence, it should be possible to pinpoint potential trouble makers, and neutralize them.

thatoneguy

Do you have iexplore.exe running all the time or iexploreR.exe?

The first one (iexplore.exe) is just normal ie, the browser. iexplorer.exe is a trojan horse/spyware type of dealie. I've had problems with this before, it was a pain to get rid of. Here's some info about it:

http://www.auditmypc.com/process/iexplorer.asp

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Church

sorry, its was iexplore.exe

__________________
Through counter-intelligence, it should be possible to pinpoint potential trouble makers, and neutralize them.

Pragma

Have you recently scanned your computer for spyware/viruses? I'd say check and make sure the computer is clean, first - that'd be the most likely culprit for keeping it open. I've had IE do "unclean exits" before, when I hit the X button in IE and the window vanishes, but the process stays open in the background. However, when I kill the process, it never starts back up. Very odd.

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Misz

You can uninstall windows components through the control panel, just go to add or remove programs there should be a tab on the left select it and delete what you wish.