Running latest AIS on XP SP3, everything up to date and no other active AV programs or system tweaks. Previous AV removed/cleaned up with their removal tool.
Every since I started using AIS less than a month ago I get random BSOD when using IE 8 in sandbox mode ONLY…maybe a couple per week. AIS seems to be working great otherwise with no other errors or BSOD, and I can run IE outside sandbox with zero issues. The error message I got suggested a missing or bad driver. However, after getting assistance on the MS forum and even after following suggested possible fixes (which didn’t help), all signs point to something with AIS sandbox. When I purchased AIS it was either the day of or the day before the latest 7.1466 came out so I’m not sure if the previous version worked OK with IE in sandbox since I only had the previous version running for a short time before it updated to 7.1466.
After searching this forum, and trying the repair option, I wasn’t able to solve this problem. I know that in many cases it’s suggested to clean remove/reinstall AIS to fix various problems but previous experience with other AV products over the years when removing/reinstalling usually left me with new/other problems and ended up be a huge headache. I got rid of my last AV because it was so buggy and impossible to fix that it required removal/reinstall about once a month. Plus, everything else seems to be working fine in AIS. In fact, I’m happy and somewhat surprised at how much faster and hassle free everything has been running on this PC since installing AIS when compared to other AV programs I’ve used, but this IE sandbox issue, although rare, is the single disappointment so far.
Update: I went ahead and did a clean uninstall/re-install for AIS. Afterwards, BSOD running IE 8 in Sandbox just like before with error message pointing towards AIS as the culprit. IE 8 runs fine outside of Sandbox just like before. Since this was about the same time that the IE Zero Day announcement was made last week, I downloaded Chrome and have been running it in the Sandbox since. There have been no BSOD’s, crashes, hangs or any other performance issues since the re-install of AIS and while running Chrome in Sandbox. As far as I can tell, AIS and everything else on the system are running great with no issues other than the problem with IE 8 in Sandbox like before.
The easy answer is obviously to just keep running Chrome and forget about IE. However, I still consider this an outstanding issue and am looking for some feedback as to either a solution or even acknowledgement that this is maybe a bug with the current version of AIS and IE.
I installed that update when it came out last Friday. I suppose anything is possible and maybe there was some sort of problem in IE causing a crash in AIS Sandbox that was addressed by this MS update, but I would think that if this was a widespread problem there would have been more posts with issues similar to mine over the past month. As I posted earlier, I have been running Chrome in Sandbox and have had zero issues with my system or AIS since last week’s clean re-install (knock on wood). As the IE BSOD was not very common and random in nature, I haven’t spent time trying to replicate the problem with IE since last Friday’s MS critical update…not real interested in taking time trying to “break” something if I don’t have to.
So far since running Chrome, I have only found one web based application that I MUST run with IE, but as it turns out, according to their techs I can’t run it Sandboxed anyway because of a known conflict (not really a security issue to me without getting into the details of that particular app).
So as it stands, I don’t really need IE to run in Sandbox, but I don’t like having some unresolved issue if there is a way to fix it just in case I need IE for something.