Most times when closing Internet Explorer a series of messages appear saying ?The instruction at 0×036b38ae referenced memory at 0×037998b4. The memory could not be read. Click to terminate the program?. Each time I click to terminate the error the message reappears. This happens about 20 times before the message disappears for good. How can I get rid of this annoying message? It only seems to have appeared after updating my Norton Antivirus software.

This is a relatively common error which I have seen on many other computers. Before venturing into more complicated causes of this problem we will start with some simple causes of this error. Many people have reported that this error is caused by temporary files clogging up Internet Explorer. So, you should first delete all Temporary Internet Files. I realise this sounds like a rather mundane potential fix, but it has been proven to work. Open Internet Explorer, then go to the “Tools” menu > “Internet Options”. In the window that appears, click the “General” tab and under the “Temporary Internet Files” heading, click “Delete Files”. In the confirmation box, tick “Delete all offline content” and click OK. This could take a while, especially if you do not clear your Temporary Internet Files on a regular basis. Leave this to complete the operation. Once this has finished, you should next try resetting the web settings. This will reset the Internet Explorer home page and search functions back to their defaults, so if you have a custom home page or search engine setup these will need to be reconfigured after this procedure. In the Internet Options window, click the “Programs” tab. Near the bottom of this window you will notice a button titled “Reset Web Settings”. Click this button. In the confirmation box that appears, tick “Also reset my home page” and click “Yes”. Once this has completed, click OK to close the Internet Options window and then close Internet Explorer. Restart the computer and check whether the problem persists.

Should the problem continue, we need to investigate some of the more complex causes of the problem. You mentioned this problem only appeared to start after installing the latest updates for Norton Antivirus. Some Norton products do integrate with Internet Explorer, which could explain why an update to Norton has caused problems in Internet Explorer. Unfortunately, this theory is difficult to test, since you cannot easily disable or remove such security products. Disabling such products normally only disables their scanning capabilities, rather than completely disabling all their functionality. So, disabling Norton Antivirus would not give an accurate representation of whether this was causing the problem. Likewise, completing a clean uninstallation of security products is also difficult, and would leave your computer vulnerable to attack during this process. Therefore, we have some other options to explore. First, we will try disabling all third-party browser extensions within Internet Explorer. This will prevent all third-party add-ons from loading when you start Internet Explorer, allowing us to see whether one of these third-party add-ons is causing the problem (e.g. Norton add-ons or something else). Open Internet Explorer and go to the “Tools” menu > “Internet Options”. In the window that appears, click the “Advanced” tab. Under the “Browsing” heading, untick the option ?Enable third-party browser extensions (requires restart)? and click OK. Restart the computer. Once the computer has restarted, open Internet Explorer and check whether the problem persists. In the more likely event that the problem does not continue, one of those third-party browser extensions or add-ons was causing the problem.

Should one of the add-ons be causing the problem, we need to determine exactly which add-on is being problematic. First, you will need to re-enable third party browser extensions, so return to the “Internet Options” > “Advanced” tab to re-enable this option. Again, restart the computer and then re-open Internet Explorer. Go to the “Tools” menu > ?Manage Add-ons?. This will open a window showing all the add-ons which are currently loaded into Internet Explorer. Make sure the “Show” box has selected ?Add-ons currently loaded in Internet Explorer?. In the list of add-ons you will see all the add-ons which are currently enabled under the “Enabled” heading. We want to disable these add-ons one-by-one to determine which may be causing this problem. Before commencing, write down all the add-ons which are currently enabled. Then, disable the first add-on. To do this, highlight the add-on and then select “Disable” from the Settings. Click OK to save and close. Check whether the problem persists. If the problem does continue, go back into Manage Add-ons and disable another add-on, then check again. Continue this process until the problem stops, at which time you know which add-on is causing the problem. When this has been determined, the short-term workaround is to simply leave the add-on disabled. However, you may need the functions which this add-on provides (e.g. should this be a Norton add-on, it may provide functions such as pop-up blocking or other security features). In order to determine a more permanent solution, I would need to know the actual add-on causing the problem, so please feel free to contact me again for further advice once you have determined the problematic add-on. In the interim, you may also wish to check for updates to the software which may resolve the issue and also search the internet to see whether any other users have experienced the same problem, and have a resolution for the issue.

However, should the issue continue even after disabling third-party browser extensions, the next most likely cause of the problem is a program or process which is conflicting with Internet Explorer. To check whether this is the case, close all programs running on the computer. Then, close all background processes running. To do this, press CTRL-ALT-DEL and the Task Manager will appear. In the window, select the “Processes” tab and click the “User Name” column to sort the processes by user name (if this column is not displayed, go to the “View” menu > “Select Columns” > “User Name”). End all the non-essential processes running under your user name. You should be able to close all the processes under your user name except ?explorer.exe? (the Windows interface) and ?taskmgr.exe? (the Task Manager, which is currently being used to close the processes). Once all the processes are closed, check whether the problem with Internet Explorer continues. Should the problem not persist, one of those processes was conflicting. In this case, just like when attempting to narrow down the Internet Explorer add-on causing the problem, it will be a process of elimination. Restart the computer so all the processes reload, and then close one program or process and observe the result. Continue this procedure until the problem stops, and you know the program or process causing the problem.

Of course, there is a possibility that closing all programs and processes will still not resolve the issue. In this case, there could be a corruption within Internet Explorer causing the problem. Try running the Windows XP System File Checker utility to see whether this will resolve the problem. Go to the “Start” menu > “Run” and type ?sfc /scannow? (without the quotes) and click OK. Make sure you put a space between the “sfc” and “/scannow” portions of the command. This will launch the System File Checker, which will automatically scan for any missing or corrupt Windows system files. Once the SFC has finished executing it will exit silently with no user feedback. At this time, you can restart the computer and check whether the problem persists. It may be also worthwhile visiting Windows Update (windowsupdate.microsoft.com) to download and install the latest updates for your computer.