Apparent conflict (at least on my computer) between WSA and some Internet Browsers

Is this just a problem on my computer, or is it more widespread??

I am a Prevx licence holder who, thanks to Joe, has been able to make an early upgrade to WSA. My OS is XP Pro SP3. My computer is old...six years old . It is a Dell Latitude Laptop. However it appears to be in pretty lean shape for its age, given that it takes maximum 50 seconds from turning on the computer to get to the Windows Welcome Screen.

My problem is: there appears to be a conflict between WSA and my Internet Browsers. I have been monitoring the problem for about a month now, and trying to find a solution (with some success). Here is a summary of what has happened.

My default browser was IE8. Immediately after uninstalling Prevx and installing WSA, I experienced IE8 instability manifesting itself with

• tabs freezing
• WSA padlock (Identity Shield) not showing when I go on https sites
• when I close tabs, in a sense they close, that is, in the sense that I can no longer access them, However, I can still see the webpage tabs
• Wilders Security Forum at times displays that I am logged in when I am not
• (sometimes) random tabs started capriciously opening (!!!)
• tab saying for about five minutes that it is trying to connect to the site I selected, until I decide out of sheer impatience to abort IE8 in Task Manager
• scrolling becomes VERY unresponsive, almost nonexistent, with pages that have lots of publicity on them, most particularly with the PageUp and PageDn keys on the keyboard
• very first problem I noticed: when I click on shortcuts to websites I have on my Quick Launch Taskbar, they no longer open benignly, but give a nasty Windows “Critical Stop” sound, and complain in an error window that “Windows cannot find (URL address)”

Solutions:

• I reset IE8 Settings to their default condition in Internet Options\Advanced. This resolved the last problem I mentioned: problem with shortcuts to website pages on my Quick Launch bar.
• I uninstalled WSA then uninstalled IE8. After that, reinstalled IE8 and subsequently reinstalled WSA. The other problems (ie. apart from the shortcut problem mentioned above) seemed to be reduced.
• However, the problem of scrolling was still very much there .

To resolve the remaining problems, I changed to Firefox as Internet Browser, a move I have been long contemplating. Things seem much better now and all the problems seem to be resolved EXCEPT … I still have the same problem that my computer continues to complain when I click on shortcuts to URL addresses (but it stops doing this the moment I uninstall WSA). I have tried uninstalling WSA then Firefox and then reinstalling Firefox and WSA in that order. My Quick Launch website shortcuts function correctly up and until the moment I reinstall WSA. From that moment on, they make the same complaint that they made above.

MY THREE QUESTIONS:

1. Has anybody else encountered similar problems
2. Is this a problem particular to my computer or might it be more widespread??
3. Is it a problem worth pursuing by the WSA programming team?

 

What other security software are you using if any? Did you try a clean reinstall of WSA and try it with default settings?

TH

 

Thank you, TH, for your as ever prompt reply.

Interesting! Yes, I did do a clean reinstall of WSA, ie. uninstalled, rebooted then reinstalled—indeed, I did this several times. I can't remember if I checked the problem of weblink shortcuts before I changed default settings. Quite possibly not. I didn't think of that one. Then again, I'm no computer expert

Anyway, I have just pressed the "Reset to Defaults" button to try your suggestion and the weblink shortcut icons have executed like a dream, and this on several repeat occasions .

But I then imported back my WSA settings with the WSA settings file and they are still working like a dream

Was it your suggestion of resetting to defaults that did it?? If so, a thousand thank yous for solving my problem.

Or was it possibly something else I have done this afternoon?? Notably, I had the infamous (with Firefox) Locate Link Browser dialogue window opening when clicking on a hyperlink in Outlook 2003. I resolved this with a Registry fix file that I downloaded from http://www.msoutlook.info/question/8. Did this perhaps fix also this problem?? I don't know...

The important thing is: I no longer have the problem. So everything is functioning correctly, apparently

However, the larger question of what caused this conflict with mainly IE8 and to a lesser extent Firefox still remains pertinent. I would certainly be interested to know if anyone else has come across this strange behaviour.

With regard to your first question, I am using Nod32 and apart from that no other AV or Security Suite.

Thank you once again. At our service, even at the weekend... Pretty cool!

 

That's great to hear and I have not seen it myself!

TH

 

Thanks so much again for your prompt replies and your suggestion, TH.

Though the problem is apparently solved for me now, it would still be interesting to hear if anyone else has had similar problems. Maybe not, if you've not seen it before??