Hey guys
Im new to all of this. And I havent really had a chance to search or do anything with regard to this problem, so if it has been covered, I apologize

I have 2 iexplorer.exe processes running every time I open up a new browser window. It seems like it is lagging alot for sites which never were slow before. When I try to close one from the task manager, they both close. Doesnt matter which I choose.

Ive also noticed that there is a Search Settings pop up bubble the creeps up all of a sudden randomly. Dunno what it is or from where.

And more importantly, Ive noticed that sites will freeze up and say Not Responding for 10-20 seconds then all of a sudden will come to life and start working again. This is more and more frequent.

I downloaded HijackThis because I saw somewhere that everyone uses it, but I dont know the first thing that Im reading or where to go form there.

Can anyone shed some light on how to fix this, step by step?? Keep in mind, Im not very illiterate when it comes to computers, but i dont know as much as you guys. So I do understand some things to a point. But I think I need my hand held on this so I dont destroy the computer trying to fix something.

::::I listed the log from HijackThis below::::

View attachment 51424

I'll need to verify this tomorrow, but as I understand it (assuming you're using IE8) One IE window will show as 2 processes. Let me know if IE 8 is what you're using.
To save some resources, rather than open a separate window, try using the tabs.

Strategic,

It is IE8. And u are correct. If I open one window, it will show as two in the process manager. This happens every time I open a new window for the first time

I do use the tabs for other sources if I need another page opened )

Ok, so for what I hear, everything is normal.
I'll confirm once again tomorrow as I do not use IE at all and don't even have it installed on y personal PC.

Update...
I have just tried opening [5] IE windows, the first started 2 processes, the second windows started a 3rd process, every window after that didn't change, only [3] processes remained

It's normal for IE8 to have multiple instances of iexplore.exe. running in the Task Manager. I think this is the result of the feature called Loosely-Coupled IE that helps isolate different parts of the browser from each other, most notably, the frames from the tabs. Here is a link that discusses these types of changes:

IE8 and Reliability:
blogsdotmsdndotcom/ie/archive/2008/07/28/ie8-and-reliabilitydotaspx (Replace the "dot" with a period ".")

As for the browser opening up sites slowly, read this post from the IE Team Blog for steps to increase load times - blogsdotmsdndotcom/ie/archive/2009/07/18/how-to-make-ie-open-new-tabs-fasterdotaspx

I hope this info helps!

- Jake

MSFT Internet Explorer Outreach Team