XP Freezes When I use IE

[Corduroy]

I've had Windows XP installed on my laptop and my desktop since late December. Since then my laptop has been a beautiful machine to use. It has no driver difficulties, it works better than ever with my school's network, and it has been overall easier to use.

My desktop has been an endless pain. Whenever I use internet explorer the system hangs. I would normally attempt to avoid this simply by not using IE, but some other programs have IE integrated in them and I cannot avoid using some of them. Windows media player for example is now giving me entertainment news all the time, and sometimes it hangs too.

Has anyone else had this problem with IE and IE related software in XP?

Do you think I should reformat and reinstall XP on this box, because I might just have a bad install. (I'm thinking about this since my laptop is working just fine)

Is something screwed on the hardware end of things? Perhaps my hard drive is the real source of the error?



If anyone has thoughts on why this new flawless operating system is screwing up on one box and not another, please tell me!

[Darthtanion]

I wouldn't reformat just yet, but you can never tell what the future may hold.

First off, run a thourough Scandisk to make sure that the drive's integrity is as it should be. If there are a few bad sectors that weren't marked as bad by the utility, then you may have tried to write data to a bad sector when you installed the OS. After that, try to get the IE download (it's available somewhere on the MS page... Mr C could probably tell you where) and then install it over your existing copy. That should take care of any possible corrupt files there.

Good luck. :)

[Anonymous]

Get a Mac

[Corduroy]

I'm not about to get a Mac, since OS X is the worst OS put out by Mac, just ask Linus. Anyway, I reformatted and reinstalled XP and this time, halfway through the installation process the install program ran scandisk and moved a bunch of files out of a bad sector of the HDD. So, I'm thinking that near the beginnning, which I assume to be the install portion, of the drive I have some bad sectors that were screwing XP up. Now it never freezes, as it shouldn't as it is based on the NT core, but thanks anyway for the Mac tip.