Hello,
I'm running Windows 7 Professional 64bit and IE 11 and somewhat recently I've been experiencing issues with desktop icons and start menu items locking up and not being available to open. New items added to either will also not show when this is the case. I've also noticed that my hard drive runs way more and longer than it ever has before.
I've ran Malwarebytes Anti-Malware(free version) and MSE, neither ever find anything. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware will run completely, while MSE usually fails to complete.
After some research online I found the suggestion that going into task manager and stopping Iexplorer.exe is a fix. While this does work it is not a solution as the issue keeps reoccurring. I've noticed that there will always be several, usually at least four, Iexplorer.exe processes running. And that they will continue to run after I've closed all web pages.
I've had a few times when I open my browser back up it will prompt that IE was shut down improperly and would I like to recover, as if it crashed, only it hasn't. And a few times when shutting down I get the prompt that something is still running and not allowing shut down even though nothing is open or being accessed. File/folder access seems slow as well.
I've also been experiencing issues with the Google toolbar extension (no prompting, no history, etc.). I've found this online as well, which seems to be due to a Windows update, but I am unsure if it could be related.
After reading this:
I feel that I may have a similar malware issue. As it's an older post I haven't followed any of the many steps. So I thought that I would post for some advice/help. Any information would be greatly appreciated.