Gritty Nits - Fix Internet Explorer 7 Crashes in Vista

Gritty Nits - Fix Internet Explorer 7 Crashes in Vista

Steven Parker on 30 January 2008 - 10:30 · 20 comments & 29790 views

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A lot of you may have seen Internet Explorer crash "Internet Explorer has stopped working" when closing the browser in Windows Vista. It happens all too often and while it no longer takes the operating system out with it, it is still annoying.

There are a lot of reasons why Internet Explorer will do this, but one we have found that really stands out is Adobe's Flash Player plug-in and ActiveX [COM Client] control. Seven (7) of ten (10) IE 7 crashes I have personally seen, are related to the Flash Player plug-in.

A lot of users may see messages advising them to re-install the Flash player and many take this advice - but they don't see any relief and the plug-in continues to un-plug IE.

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(1 reply) #1 Mando on 30 Jan 2008 - 10:39

Ive also had a number of crashes related to flash in IE7 on XP pro at work (6 or 7 reports since update)

Wasnt until I read this that it came to me it was when trying to install Flash that IE7 would stop responding.

#1.1 NPGMBR on 30 Jan 2008 - 13:52

I've been having this exact problem every since I got Vista lat February. It always says that Adobe is crashing IE and suggests I got to Adobe to get a newer version of Flash but apparently Adobe had not updated it so the problem persists. Thank god it does not happen that often though.

#2 bobbba on 30 Jan 2008 - 10:49

While I can appreciate that MS aren't repsonsible for problems caused by a 3rd party's plugin, you'd have though MS would have built something into IE to protect it from these kind of problems by now...

#3 Joseph21 on 30 Jan 2008 - 11:10

they should fix the slow ness.... firefox feels like speed of light compared to it-

(2 replies) #4 Chugworth on 30 Jan 2008 - 13:14

Hah! I knew it was Flash that was causing these problems. See, that's the problem that Microsoft has to contend with. People tend to blame Microsoft for the crashes they get, while the vast majority of them are actually caused by poorly written 3rd party software, drivers, and plug-ins. This has been proven through the Windows Error Report service.

#4.1 Wivern on 30 Jan 2008 - 13:57

(Chugworth said @ #4)

Maybe, just maybe... when you want to support 3rd party plugins & software, just maybe you should think, just for a second, about stability of your program.
You should try to make your program rock solid, so that when a plugin fails, it's just the plugin that fails and not everything else.

#4.2 dangel on 30 Jan 2008 - 14:07

(Wivern said @ #4.1)

(Chugworth said @ #4)

Mmm cos no other browser can be brought down with plugins, right?
Ah.

#5 cork1958 on 30 Jan 2008 - 13:43

Usually have flash disabled or blocked, depending on browser and OS, I'm using, and gave up on IE7 again, AND Vista a while back.

#6 Poof on 30 Jan 2008 - 16:10

I wish I was kidding/flaming... But I'm only having the browser crashes/etc on FireFox >.< IE7... Is just fine for me.

#7 sweetsam on 30 Jan 2008 - 16:52

Flash has been the cause for the crashes I have had. Logout of hotmail takes you to msn.com where they have flash stuff... crash ! Disabling flash stops the problem.

#8 xMorpheousx416 on 30 Jan 2008 - 17:10

So far.... everyone one of our clients that have called in asking about IE7 crashing, or "stopped working" has been fixed by disabling the Flash addon.

#9 +tunafish on 30 Jan 2008 - 18:01

well atleast it no longer kills the OS! But i have had the same issue in IE7 and FF

#10 DonC on 30 Jan 2008 - 20:22

I've been checking which module IE has crashed in for the last four years and over that time, Adobe Reader (acroread) and Google Toolbar were by far the main offenders.

IE crashing itself has been a rare event during that time, but as an earlier poster said - it takes the damn process out so it's easy to think that IE's just bombing out because of itself.

These days, Firefox crashes on me much more than IE does.

#11 waruikoohii on 30 Jan 2008 - 20:43

I was getting a lot of these crashes, but Adobe released an updated version of the Flash player about a month and a half ago.

I haven't had IE crash on me since.

#12 +rm20010 on 30 Jan 2008 - 21:02

I would say Quicktime's ActiveX controls and Firefox/Opera plugins have been THE most unstable 3rd party addons for browsers in the past year. Can't recall how many times they brought down both IE7 and Firefox. Flash's plugins are okay.

#13 J400uk on 30 Jan 2008 - 21:27

Mine crashes every day and its damn annoying. Always either flash player or some other plug in, and yes I have tried reinstalling flash it made no dif still causes crashes.

(1 reply) #14 wozzer on 30 Jan 2008 - 22:12

In case it helps, I found that Java was causing me the most crashes - simply disabling the 2 Sun Microsystem addons cleared up my issues. http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6545701

#14.1 hentaiboy on 30 Jan 2008 - 22:56

I've found the same fix for crashes on XP as well

#15 Shane2 on 31 Jan 2008 - 03:11

Opera never crashes on me personally, but I don't really use IE enough to comment on that, but the fault lies with Adobe not Microsoft. IE is not inherently unstable anyway just slow xD

#16 BinkNeo on 29 Mar 2008 - 06:33

I’ve practically given up on Flash—it just seems to like crashing the browser. I leave it disabled most of the time and only enable it when needed. I found a neat tool called Toggle Flash that does the trick from http://flash.melameth.com.

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Gritty Nits - Fix Internet Explorer 7 Crashes in Vista

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