Not only checked processes but rebooted. Interestingly enough the IExplorer process shows zero cpu usage unless I move the task manager, then it creeps up to 99%.

I updated McAfee to 2008 versions. Only thing that really changed. I tried removing site advisor, bu that did not accomplish much. I"m going to try temporarily disable firewall and anti-virus, which is something I should have thought to begin with.

Nope - with all of Mcafee disabled, iexplorer still locks up. I'm going to wait until Monday to worry about this further. Automatic updates peretty much keep me patched without having to go into explorer, and there are not that many MS only web sites I need to worry about. But if anyone has thoughts I'll try them Monday.

Other weird thing. Internet Explorer never appears in the application list. Only the iexplorer in the task manager process list. Yet IE is visible. I can even access some of the toolbars while it is locked - just not get a response to any button. The only way to exit is to terminate the process in task manager or llog out of winds or shut down the computer. Otherwise you just get the connecting message forever.

Which version of IE? Which toolbars? Any 3rd-party toolbars?

Internet 7 - latest patches. No toolbars.

FireFox with a bunch of plugins works fine.

Because Firefox is the browser that is actually used, there are no critical bookmarks, cookies or saved passwords to worry about in explorer. In other words at this point, I'm thinking I've a bunch of stuff I need to do for deadlines over the weekend, then Monday, I'll nuke it from orbit. That is reinstall 7 from scratch. I guess the only question is to how to make sure the new copy really completely overrides the old, and does not bring over any saved settings.

On second thought, I'll reset to defaults first - easynuke so to speak. If that does not work I'll try the complete reinstall.

IE7 can be uninstalled. Windows reverts back to IE6.

OK - so reset to default. If that does not work revert to six then reinstall 7.

As mentioned in Bitches, my iMac went postal last night before leaving for my weekend getaway. So I'm trying to come up with a plan of attack when I get back home. It seems when Parallels went "non-responding" on me, and slowly locked up the machine, it did a number to the hard drive. After HOURS of aargh, I did manage to * verify the hardware is fine * repair permissions. Ya, not much. However, I can't seem to repair either the Mac HD or the Bootcamp HD from the disk utility that comes with the Installer DVD. First it said it couldn't unmount the drive. So I did that manually. THen it said "invalid node structure". Then I scanned again and it said "invalid record count". On the bootcamp drive it consistantly said "unable to read directory (input/output error). ERROR: THe underlying task reported failure on exit."

Any thoughts? Is it a safe assumption that if I re-install the system, it will need to wipe the drive? I'd rather not do that, as the back-ups was on next weeks plan of things to do. I have the bulk of my iTunes and pictures, but not my e-mails or recent files since purchasing the computer.

Typo Boy, I've seen that before when the PC had a trojan in it. The trojan was hooking on to IE and trying to hide itself, but ended up hiding IE instead and buggering itself up.

Hmm, neither McAfee nor AD Aware finds any Trojans. Nor does MS Malware detection.