Confessions of a Microsoft Consultant : Internet Explorer

Putting iexplore.exe on a diet

Daniel Oxley — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:19:34 GMT

I have gotten very used, very quickly, to the excellent tabbed browsing feature that was introduced with Internet Explorer 7. This feature was tweaked a fair bit for Internet Explorer 8, but the most noticeable change is that now each tab opens in a separate memory process; this really is great because if the content of one of the tabs causes a crash in iexplore.exe, it won’t cause all the other tabs to crash meaning you lose everything that you had open. The downside of course is that by having each tab in a separate process, more system memory is consumed – not a problem if you have plenty of memory to spare, but my Anti-MS brother always complains to me about how slow his computer is, even though it only has 128mb of RAM and runs Windows XP plus 300 other applications simultaneously. Of course, his lack of RAM has nothing to do with the system performance, but rather it is the fault of the operating system – or so he insists (but then he actually believes that VMware ESXi is “just sexy”, so I don’t listen too much).

Anyway, if you want to reign in the memory usage of iexplore.exe a little, you can tweak some settings in the registry. Changing these will cause, amongst other things, iexplore.exe not to start so many separate processes; a useful tip to save a bit of system memory if you are a bit short but at the cost of potentially losing all open tabs if the content of one of them caused a crash.

I saw these tweaks over on the AskIE blog, where they do a pretty good job of explaining what each one does. have included their explanation below:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main - TabProcGrowth (string or dword)

Tab Process Growth : Sets the rate at which IE creates New Tab processes. There are two algorithms used by Internet Explorer.

1. Context-based: By default, the context-based algorithm is used and the curve is chosen based on the amount of physical memory on the machine. In addition, the TabProcGrowth string registry value may be manually forced to:

small: Maximum 5 tab processes in a logon session, requires 15 tabs to get the 3rd tab process.
medium: Maximum 9 tab processes in a logon session, requires 17 tabs to get the 5th tab process.
large: Maximum 16 tab processes in a logon session, requires 21 tabs to get the 9th tab process.

2. The "Max-Number" algorithm: This specifies the maximum number of tab processes that may be executed for a single isolation session for a single frame process at a specific mandatory integrity level (MIC). Relative values are:

TabProcGrowth=0 : tabs and frames run within the same process; frames are not unified across MIC levels.
TabProcGrowth =1: all tabs for a given frame process run in a single tab process for a given MIC level.

Note: On Terminal Server, the default value is the integer of 1.

TabProcGrowth >1: multiple tab processes will be used to execute the tabs at a given MIC level for a single frame process. In general, new processes are created until the TabProcGrowth number is met, and then tabs are load balanced across the tab processes.

Note: that the frame process is no longer allowed to execute at low-MIC. If this is attempted, the process will exit.

You may select the Max-Number algorithm by specifying the registry value as an integer. The registry value may be a string value containing an integer (e.g., "5") or a DWORD value containing an integer (e.g., 5).

In general, you have to restart IE to use a different TPG value.

Creating Your Own Search Provider in Internet Explorer

Daniel Oxley — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:08:49 GMT

For me, this is possibly one of the most overlooked, but invaluable, features of Internet Explorer 7 and 8. I actually only discovered it a few days ago, but I now use it pretty much daily.

First introduced with Internet Explorer 7, the Instant Search box in the top right-hand corner of the browser allows you to search the indexes of pages, such as bing.com and yahoo.com, without visiting the pages first. You enter your search terms into the box, initiate the search, and then the results page are displayed in the browser window. You can quickly customise the list of possible search engines, or you can even make your own ones.

Just follow the steps detailed below to create a new search provider, which you can then easily adapt to possibly any website you want to search.

From Internet Explorer, open the drop-down menu that appears in the top-right of the window, next to the Instant Search box. The menu is the one with the magnifying glass icon. From this menu, choose Manage Search Providers

In the new window that appears, click the Find more search providers link at the bottom.

This will open up a new web page where you can add various other pre-configured search providers, such as eBay, or Amazon.com. Scroll to the bottom of this webpage and click the link Create your own Search Provider

Clicking this link will open a different web page. Without closing this page, open a new instance of your browser and go to the webpage you want to add as a search provider. Using their search engine, search for the word TEST (make sure you enter it in uppercase) and wait for the results page to be displayed. As you can see in the example below, I went to the BBC News webpage and searched their site with the word TEST.

Once the results are displayed, go to the address bar at the top (highlighted in the below image in the wider red box) and select all the text that appears and then copy this text to the clipboard (press CTRL + C on your keyboard if you are unsure).

Return to the previous window, as shown below, and paste (press CTRL + V on your keyboard) the previously copied text into the URL field. Then, provide your own name for the search provider in the Name field. Then, simply press the Install Search Provider button to configure it into your browser.

If you are curious, you can click on the View XML link at the bottom of the page in order to see what is going on behind the scenes, as shown in this image.

You will be asked if you are sure you want to add the new search provider, and if you want it to be your default one. Take your pick, and then press Add.

Once added, you’ll see it appear in the list of search providers in Internet Explorer. You can now click on the close button to complete the process. It is worth noting that no software whatsoever has been installed on your computer. ALL that has happened is that Internet Explorer now has a cached copy of the XML file that you saw above, and uses this to provide the new search functionality. This is not an add-on to the browser that has been installed.

To use the new search provider is simple! Select it from the drop-down list in the top right of the browser window, input your search terms into the Instant Search box, and hit the Enter button on your keyboard! The browser will then load the page and display the results you were looking for!

This feature is incredibly useful because it allows you to extend the search functionality of Internet Explorer to include pretty much any website that offers the search feature. Importantly, this also includes any internal websites and portals that your company might have (using technologies such as Microsoft SharePoint for example), it doesn’t just have to be external sites. And, you’ll find that it will work with the majority of sites, not just the popular ones.

p.s. Why is the word TEST used? Well, this is simply so that Internet Explorer can then read the XML file and locate the part which is used for the search terms. The word TEST is then simply substituted for the search terms you specify!

Everything you ever wanted to know about Internet Explorer 8 (but were afraid to ask)

Daniel Oxley — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:15:06 GMT

We have a nice shiny new website available with tons of information about Internet Explorer 8, included the links to download beta 1 so that you can try it for yourself! Go here to get it: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/default.htm

IE8 has loads of new stuff, but possibly the coolest feature that I have seen in it so far is something called "WebSlices". Basically, it allows you to take a chunk of data from a web page, and place it on the toolbar; like so:

Note, this is not the MSN toolbar or any other add-in to IE8, this is a feature that is part of the main browser. So, let's say that you wanted to keep your eye on an online auction, you just add the info about the current highest bid of the auction to your WebSlice and then keep an eye on the page without actually having to open it every time you want to check it out; all from the WebSlice that you created. By subscribing to the content of the page your WebSlice will keep itself updated with the latest content.