Hello, I had originally asked this question over in the IE section of MS Communities, but someone there suggested that the problem belonged here instead. Very intermittent problems LOADING IE on Windows 7. I don't mean that an IE screen appears, and then later the home page displays, but rather iexplore.exe doesn't even show up in task manager processes for up to four minutes. A bit of background... 1. The problem does NOT occur on Windows XP machines. 2. Occurs with BOTH IE8 and IE9 on Windows 7 Enterprise, (all 64 bit machines, we have only a few 32 bit Win7 Enterprise, limited to VM's. Problem has occured on VM's also.) 3. Does NOT occur all the time, is intermittent, but generally will not recur on the same machine if rebooted, or logged off and on, the same day. Started on the day we initially began rolling out Win7 to users. 4. No errors are shown in the event logs. 5. The same user can logon to 10 different machines, and the problem MAY occur on 1-2 of them. 6. Occurs on a freshly imaged machine, as frequently as an older machine. 7. Occurs on virtual machines, as well as physical machines, symptoms are identical. 8. As the problem occurs with both freshly imaged machines (and recomposed vm's), as well as machines that have been in use for several months, it is VERY unlikely to be a problem with virus/spyware/malware. 9. There are a significant number of GPO's that are being downloaded to the machines. 10. There are sites loaded into Trusted Sites, but not a huge number ~ 16 or so. Nothing is loaded into restricted sites. 11. Problem is more likely to occur immediately after logon, but may still occur 5-10 minutes after logon. 12. Add-ons causing the problem are a possibility, but, as most are required, disabling might not be possible in most situations. 13. If IE is stated in a "non-conventional" manner, it starts properly. Here's what I mean. If you click on an IE icon, the problem may be exhibited, clicking more than once on the icon does not speed anything up, but, if you then go to 'Open Network and Sharing Center", and then click on the Internet icon, IE immediately opens, along with any other sessions from previous IE icon clicking. 14. If the problem is being exhibited, things like MS Word will wait to load also, but you can start Task Manager, and get to Networking and Sharing Center without problems. 15. Iexplore.exe does NOT show up in Task Manager until after the problem has 'cleared' or perhaps 'timed out', also, neither processor usage or network usage is very high, yes the processor usage jumps immediately after clicking IE, but doesn't thay there for long, maybe 1-2 seconds, if that, while the problem lasts for 3-4 minutes. 16. We have about 16 total domain controllers, most are VM's but there is at least one physical domain controller at each site, most are Windows Server 2008 R2, but a couple of 2003 R2 DC's are still around. There is only a single DHCP server for each location, but there are 6 DNS servers available. Bandwidth between significant locations is a minimum of 10mb, and maxes out at 40mb at the largest secondary location. 17. Problem is most frequently exhibited at the primary location, but, there are far fewer Win 7 PC's at the remote locations. 18. We have two domains, and the problem occurs on both domains, but is more frequent on the larger domain. We have NO issues in dcdiag, all tests are passed. All replications are properly occuring between domain controllers. 19. We are using a .pac file for confiuration of our Sophos appliance proxy. We see no errors in that file. Anti-virus is installed on ALL machines, Sophos ver 10.0. On access scanning is enabled. 20. WSUS is running and keeping all required updates installed on PC's. Not all optional updates are installed by default, we manage those on a case by case basis, but if it is approved, will generally permit the install on all machines. 21. It is unknown if the problem also occurs on Windows Server 2008 R2 servers or not. They aren't accessed enough to know if the problem occurs or not. 22. No alternative browser is available to test. IE is REQUIRED by many of the software programs used and alternatives are not an option. Based on what I've seen so far here's what I want to know, and maybe only MS Technical people might know the answers. 1. What is IE doing immediately upon loading, even before iexplore.exe shows up in task manager? 2. Why would that be bypassed when loaded from "Network and Sharing Center"? 3. What is different between the IE load process in XP versus Win7? 4. Is IE attempting to contact a domain controller to get GPO or proxy information? 5. Is IE waiting for some other process to start before it will open? 6. If the likely problem is from a GPO setting, what would be most likely? Or, is the quantity of GPO's the likely culprit. 7. Something entirely different? Hopefully I've given enough information to help troubleshoot the problem. This problem is limiting our ability to roll out Win7 to all our users, over 1500 PC's, and VM's, and well over 10,000 total users. Thanks in advance for your help with this problem.

I think you could ask these questions in IE forum, obviously these questions are IE questions. 1. What is IE doing immediately upon loading, even before iexplore.exe shows up in task manager? I would like to suggest you capture process monitor for analysis, and maybe you can find out the answer. 4. Is IE attempting to contact a domain controller to get GPO or proxy information? IE does not do that, CSEs handle GPO setting, not IE. 5. Is IE waiting for some other process to start before it will open? Based on my knowledge, IE does not wait for other process. 6. If the likely problem is from a GPO setting, what would be most likely? Or, is the quantity of GPO's the likely culprit. I suggest you disjoin a problematic client from the domain, then open IE again, what's the result? a client will not apply GP any more if you disjoin it from domain. I suspect this issue caused by malware or 3rd party applications/services, you can try "safe mode with networking". in addition, you said you can open IE immediately by click Internet icon in "Network and Sharing Center", please try: 1. open task manager, click "File" >> "New Task" >> type "iexplore.exe" and click "OK" 2. open "C:\Program files\Internet Explorer", double click "iexplore.exe". Can IE start immediately? Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Thanks for your reply, 1. What is IE doing immediately upon loading, even before iexplore.exe shows up in task manager? I would like to suggest you capture process monitor for analysis, and maybe you can find out the answer. This we might be able to try on a few machines, but it is not possible to deploy campus wide, so having a failure recur with a small sample size is either going to take a while, or might not happen at all. 4. Is IE attempting to contact a domain controller to get GPO or proxy information? IE does not do that, CSEs handle GPO setting, not IE. This is good to know, it at least eliminates one possible problem. 5. Is IE waiting for some other process to start before it will open? Based on my knowledge, IE does not wait for other process. This is also good to know, but why is IE not showing up in Task Manager, even though it appears to have been loaded, and execution started. 6. If the likely problem is from a GPO setting, what would be most likely? Or, is the quantity of GPO's the likely culprit. I suggest you disjoin a problematic client from the domain, then open IE again, what's the result? a client will not apply GP any more if you disjoin it from domain. This is really irrevelant to what we can troubleshoot, as the machine is useless not on the domain, and no users could possible login to it off the domain, we will never get results. The problem is not continously repeatable, and there is no way we could possibly get any valid results if we performed this test. I suspect this issue caused by malware or 3rd party applications/services, you can try "safe mode with networking". Malware is VERY unlikely, as this problem occurs on freshly imaged machines, and recomposed VM's. All created from known clean sources, etc...., and as some of those same sources also feed our XP machines, we should also see the problem there, if that were the problem. A 3rd party app is a possiblilty, and we will investigate that, but we only install 'required' apps, and the problem occurs even on our most minimally installed PC's/VM's (Windows, Office 2010, Flash Player 11, Acrobat Reader X, 7-Zip 9.20) Flash would be most suspect in this instance, but, it is consistently used daily on pretty much all mchines, and disabling would cause a ruckus. in addition, you said you can open IE immediately by click Internet icon in "Network and Sharing Center", please try: 1. open task manager, click "File" >> "New Task" >> type "iexplore.exe" and click "OK" 2. open "C:\Program files\Internet Explorer", double click "iexplore.exe". Can IE start immediately? This is something we can try and will post the results once we know the answer, but other than giving users an alternative method of starting IE, what would this prove?

sometimes, we take some actions to narrow down the issue, but not a solution. Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

I'm having the same problem. I didn't let it go for four minutes, though. I killed the processes and tried again - no dice. It works in safe mode, by the way (that's where I am now).

if the issue does not occur in safe mode, I think it may be caused by 3rd party application/service. you mentioned you killed the process. but I remembered you said you cannot find the process in four minutes. it seems be a little different. Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

if the issue does not occur in safe mode, I think it may be caused by 3rd party application/service. you mentioned you killed the process. but I remembered you said you cannot find the process in four minutes. it seems be a little different. Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Sorry, little of this was truly useful, but I do appreciate the responses. We've opened a support case with MS directly, and with our anti-virus vendor, and even if it does cost some cash, we might actually be making progress toward a solution. AS we've continued troubleshooting, we've discovered that the problem isn't just with starting IE, but could be what ever program might be started shortly after boot. So far we have no firm answer, but at least some direction, and some things to try, especially from the AV vendor.