Robert -- Thanks for all your efforts! They will undoubtedly help others
besides me and Todd. For what it's worth, I had two furhter thoughts:

1) It can't hurt to send Micorsoft an automated problem report every time
this happens.

2) Do you know if upgrading to IE8 -- still under XP -- will help? (I think
this may require updating XP to SP3, which Lenovo is still advising against.
In any case, I don't trust IE8 yet -- since it's so new -- but a solution to
this problem might make the risk worthwhile...

Best Regards. -- JCW



"Robert Aldwinckle" wrote:

>
> "JCW" <JCW@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:7C59D0C3-C794-46A8-A038-48C50D519A43@microsoft.com...
>
>
> > Did you have any luck with the zipped version of the file that I sent on
> > Thursday?
>
>
> Actually I found it depressingly easy to reproduce your symptom.
> E.g. save KB123456 as archive. Try to open it. Hang IE.
>
> So far the only new workaround I have found is modifying the
> ..mht's HTML with MOTW and then modifying my Internet zone
> security settings to either avoid scripting or set it to prompt.
> For some bizarre reason when it is set to prompt I *can* make
> it render without hanging the task. Probably some weird timing
> factors nobody thought of. Or more security/obscurity. ; }
>
> BTW the hang symptom itself is interesting. ProcMon shows that
> the last thing that happens in the problem task is 4 threads exit.
> Then all I see using Task Manager is that the problem task is
> doing nothing but trying to do something with I/O Other
> but I/O Other Bytes is static. Makes me think that they are
> forgetting that there is no Internet connection. ; }
>
> Unfortunately I have found previous reports from others in which it was
> noted that the symptom does not occur in Vista. I myself noted that it
> doesn't occur in W7, so we may be out of luck regarding the possibility
> of ever seeing a fix for this in XP. E.g. there is no security aspect which
> can be exploited (which could cause it to be fixed via a security update)
> and there is a workaround available. Just the frustrating reality of having
> problem symptoms only in old versions of products I'm afraid.
>
> The only other possibility I think will be that someone with a support
> contract (or someone who wants to pay for support) comes along
> and demands a hotfix be made. Then I suppose we could eventually
> see such a hotfix integrated with a QFE version of a security update.
>
>
> FYI
>
> Robert
> ---
>
>
>