Whenever I use Internet Explorer, the Windows Task Manager tells me that I'm running two iexplore.exe files. Whenever I try to stop the other one, it returns almost immediately. It looks like someone's hijacking my browser. I've just wasted nearly two hours of my life (most of it waiting in a queue) to no good result trying to get some sense out of an analyst at Norton, which doesn't find anything in my system.
Iain Noble
It's quite common for Trojans and adware (possibly Lop) to pretend to be Internet Explorer, so you may well have a problem. Since Norton hasn't found it, turn it off and try running Kaspersky's free Virus Removal Tool, Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware. If these don't find anything in "normal" mode, reboot into safe mode and run them again.
You may also be able to find whatever is hooking into your system by using Sysinternals' Autoruns, from Microsoft. This tells you what your PC is loading, but in great detail, so it needs to be used with extreme care.
If all else fails, post a Hi-Jack This log in an online forum such as Bleeping Computer or Tech Support Guy.
I'm assuming that you are not running Internet Explorer 8. This uses different processes to open different tabs, so if you have a dozen windows open in IE8, this will usually result in five or six instances of iexplore.exe, depending on how much memory you have. (The more tabs you open, the more often IE8 will re-use the same processes, so as to avoid consuming all your PC's resources.)
