
Mark Russinovich:The Case of the Random IE Crash - yread
http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2010/06/01/3335060.aspx
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landyman
This post taught me more about troubleshooting a faulting process in Windows
than anything I've done in the last year or two.

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zppx
Check the others posts from Mark, he teaches really useful debugging
techniques for applications that are closed sourced or the code is to complex
for the common power user.

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mahmud
Mark is Mr. Windows Debugging. He gave Microsoft hell with his Sysinternals
company and publications until they bought him out.

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raintrees
"so the likely explanation was that the toolbar had come onto my system
piggybacking on the installation of one of the several video-card stress
testing and temperature profiling tools I used while overclocking the system."

So why would a browser toolbar component become part of a video-
card/temperature tool bundle? Poor DLL tracking on the tool developer's part?

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GFischer
Most often than not, it's adware explicitly included in the installer by the
software's creator to make a profit on shareware or freeware.

They usually have opt-outs, but the shadier ones do not - and you can
legitimately click "next-next-next" and don't read about them and uncheck the
button that installs it - that's what they're counting on.

If someone like Russinovich didn't see it, it was probably not opt-out.

Edit: here's some relevant info

[http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090518120035AA...](http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090518120035AAtbHlN)

Google purportedly pays U$ 2 per install, I guess Yahoo! does the same

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raintrees
Thanks, that seems so obvious, now that you've explained it. I hadn't though
about the advertising angle (silly me)...

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JoeAltmaier
Yahoo! toolbar in particular has moved to the status of virus, in my view. If
you get "infected", it takes an expert to expunge it totally.

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herf
Craplets... It turns out that PC hardware is frequently sold at a loss today,
and up to $100 of the cost is paid by craplets.

This stuff doesn't stop until people know what's installed, why, and what
resources are being used.

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PidGin128
I've enjoyed this and his previous debugging articles.

What I don't understand is why he didn't notice the toolbar itself, since he
was actively using the browser when it crashed. Perhaps it was installed, but
instructed to hide itself? (As opposed to being installed & disabled.)

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ars
Case closed - for him.

But if ever there was a blog post that explained why I don't use windows this
was it!

You have some random out of date software application installed on your
machine and don't even know it? And you are a highly technical person?

I can't even imagine what it's like for a non technical person.

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smallblacksun
This has nothing to do with windows. Nothing prevents software installed in
Linux (or Os X) from installing crap Firefox (or safari, or whatever)
extensions.

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rictic
On a technical level you couldn't be more correct.

However, for various reasons – a mix of cultural and economic I suspect –
ridiculous hidden installations and other software showing a coldly calculated
contempt for the user are a fact of life while using Windows, and are very
rare indeed on other platforms.

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DanielBMarkham
This is why the first thing you do with a windows machine -- assuming you like
windows -- is wipe it and configure it yourself. Manufactures cannot be
trusted with your configuration.

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jmillikin
I read " _The only software I generally install on my gaming systems are
Microsoft Office and games_ " as indicating that he did install it himself. He
believes the toolbar was a hidden payload in a system performance tool he
installed.

