When closing Internet Explorer a message appears asking whether I would like to close all tabs or just the current tab. If I click the “All Tabs” option the timer goes round and around forever and nothing is closed. If I click the “This Tab” button it usually closes but then the timer appears and the same thing happens. The only way to stop the timer is by going to the “Start” menu > “Turn off computer”. A message appears to say that Internet Explorer is not responding and asks whether I would like to end the process. This force closes Internet Explorer and turns off the computer, allowing me to restart and Internet Explorer works until the next time. The computer is running Windows XP with auto-updates enabled.

Internet Explorer can occasionally be a bit temperamental resulting in unhelpful behaviour such as you are experiencing when attempting to close the browser. I would be interested to determine whether the same problem occurs if you only have one tab open in Internet Explorer, as that should not cause the message to appear asking which tabs you would like to close (since there is only one tab, so the question is rather moot). If the problem does not occur when closing Internet Explorer with only a single tab open then that could be a way around the problem (at least temporarily) – close all tabs manually, with the exception of the last tab, and then close Internet Explorer itself. Unfortunately this test which we have just run does not provide us with any useful information about how we can fix the actual problem, but it does perhaps at least provide you with a temporary workaround in the meantime (so that you don’t need to go through the rigmarole of having to shutdown the computer each time you close Internet Explorer).

On the topic of workarounds, another possibility (which will again just allow you to get around the problem of Internet Explorer freezing) is to use the Windows Task Manager to manually kill the Internet Explorer process. Your ability to do this will depend on how badly Internet Explorer locks-up your computer on closing, although since you are able to access the Start menu to shut down the computer, it is likely that your computer is not entirely frozen but is still responsive (just with a frozen Internet Explorer window on screen). This means that you should be able to use the Task Manager to kill Internet Explorer. Next time that you find Internet Explorer has frozen on exit, press CTRL-ALT-DEL to open the Windows Task Manager. On the “Applications” tab you should see Internet Explorer listed as a task, most likely with the “Status” column reading “Not responding” (if it is still listed as “Running” then don’t worry, it takes a few moments for Windows to realise that the task is no longer responding and change its status). Select “Internet Explorer” and then click the “End Task” button. Confirm that you wish to end the task and then (hopefully) Internet Explorer will close. However, it is possible that it may resist being closed, particularly if the program has locked-up completely. In this case we will terminate the process which is actually driving the application. To do this, right-click on “Internet Explorer” on the “Applications” tab and select “Go to process”. This will switch to the “Processes” tab and highlight the process which is related to Internet Explorer (most likely the “iexplore.exe” process). With that process selected, click the “End Process” button to forcefully terminate the process. Once you confirm that you would like to proceed, this should close Internet Explorer. Be aware, when forcefully closing Internet Explorer this also may cause the task bar to disappear (i.e. the bar containing the Start menu and other programs and windows). Because Internet Explorer is so deeply integrated into Windows, killing Internet Explorer will often also kill the Windows “explorer.exe” process which is essentially the graphical user interface for Windows (this is not to be confused with the Windows Explorer application, which is used to browse the file system). There is an in-built safety feature in Windows so that if the “explorer.exe” process terminates it will automatically relaunch, so you don’t need to worry about it being closed and then not coming back again! Some people occasionally report that explorer.exe does not automatically re-launch (even though it should) and if this happens then in the Windows Task Manager just click the “File” menu > “New Task (Run)” and type “explorer.exe” (without the quotes) then click OK to restart the explorer process.

Now that we have covered a few workarounds for the problem, we should turn our attention to potential methods to fix the underlying problem. As you may have read in previous columns, when encountering issues with Internet Explorer the first procedure we can attempt in troubleshooting the problem is to disable all add-ons to check whether one is causing the problem and potentially conflicting with Internet Explorer. Open Internet Explorer and go to the “Tools” menu > “Manage Add-ons” (if the menu bar is not visible press the ALT key to trigger the display). The Manage Add-ons window will display all add-ons installed within Internet Explorer which are either enabled or disabled. Ensure that “Toolbars and Extensions” is selected in the left-hand pane, as those are the particular add-ons which are of interest. Next, note down all of the add-ons which are enabled (or if a lot are enabled, it may be easier to just write down the ones which are disabled) so that once we have disabled all of the add-ons (for our troubleshooting) we know which add-ons we need to re-enable.

Once you have noted down all of the enabled (or disabled) add-ons, select one of the add-ons and then press CTRL + A to select all. Click the “Disable all” button to disable all of the selected add-ons, which should be all the add-ons since they are all selected. Click “Close” to save the changes and then restart Internet Explorer. Unfortunately this probably means that Internet Explorer will freeze-up, since all those add-ons are currently running (and the Internet Explorer restart is needed to unload and not load those add-ons next time Internet Explorer starts). Either use one of the workaround methods mentioned, or alternatively restart the computer, to get around this issue. Then, restart Internet Explorer, open a few tabs and close Internet Explorer to check whether the problem still occurs. Should you find that the problem does not occur then we have found the cause of the problem and now it’s just a process of elimination to track down exactly which add-on is causing the problem. To do this, I suggest that you re-enable one of the add-ons which was disabled during the previous step, then restart Internet Explorer to check whether the problem re-occurs again. Keep repeating this procedure until the problem starts, at which time you know that the most recently enabled add-on is the one causing the problem.

However, if you find that disabling all add-ons does not solve the problem then we need to look elsewhere. Before going any further make sure that you re-enable any add-ons which you previously disabled, so that we reverse these changes which we previously made. The next troubleshooting step involves resetting Internet Explorer. This is generally only recommended when Internet Explorer has become unusable, but it has a fairly good track record in fixing a whole host of other problems as well. When you reset Internet Explorer it will reset all settings to factory defaults together with emptying the cache and clearing the history. To complete a reset, return to the Internet Options window and select the “Advanced” tab. At the bottom of the window click the “Reset” button. In order to maximise our changes of this fixing the problem I recommend a complete reset, so make sure that you tick the “Delete personal settings” option as well. However, ensure that you read through all the implications of this process and exactly what will be deleted. Once you are finished click “Reset” to commence the reset procedure. Following the reset Internet Explorer will need to be restarted, at which time you should check to see whether the problem has been resolved.

Should the issue continue then there is not much else with the Internet Explorer configuration that we can modify when attempting to fix this problem. We should next look at the possibility that some core Internet Explorer file has become corrupt or is missing. While normally that would prevent Internet Explorer from working properly at all, it is still worth investigating since it is possible that some minor file corruption is causing the problem. We will use the System File Checker utility to help check whether any files need to be replaced or recovered with their original versions. Go to the “Start” menu > “Run” and type “sfc /scannow” (without the quotes, and mind the space between the “sfc” and “/scannow” portions of the command). The System File Checker utility will commence operating immediately. Be aware, during the process you may be prompted to insert your Windows XP CD should new copies of files need to be extracted from the CD, so it could be worthwhile keeping a copy of that CD handy. Once the System File Checker has finished operations it will exit silently with no user feedback, at which time you should restart the computer (in case any files need to reload) and then check whether the problem continues.

If you still find that the problem persists you have a few options, the first being a reinstallation of Windows. While this is fairly heavy-handed it is fairly certain that this will resolve the problem simply by virtue of installing a brand new copy of Windows. Alternatively, you may wish to consider upgrading to the latest version of Windows (at this time, Windows 7) as Windows XP does not support the latest version of Internet Explorer (version 9). An alternative to both these options would be to use a different web browser that does not suffer from the problem. While this is more of a workaround (rather than a solution) there are plenty of other browsers which perform similar functions to Internet Explorer, perhaps even a bit better (since most alternative browsers have a much greater support for more recent web standards, allowing them to render and display some web pages better). Two of the most popular web browsers are Mozilla Firefox (www.mozilla.com/firefox) and Google Chrome (www.google.com/chrome). Both are available for free to download and, even if you get Internet Explorer working, I would encourage you to give these a try and you may find them more suitable for your needs.