Resident SDHelper slow in 1.6

[jldet5]

Add me to the list of SDhelper slows IE7 to a crawl.

Reverting back to 1.5.2

[Bunni]

I too have reverted back. IE7 is just fine now with SD Helper loaded.

[DougCuk]

Well it doesn't look like this one is going to get solved anytime soon.

I prefer the faster scan times of Spybot v1.6 and the new Teatimer functions.
So I am just going to leave SDHelper switched off for now.

[DougCuk]

This problem was really bugging me so I got serious.

I downloaded the Microsoft Sysinternals Process Monitor utility and tracked down what Windows Explorer was doing during the 3 second delay when opening a folder. This utility allows you to see in real time what your computer is doing - Registry operations - File-system operations - Processes and Thread operations. Not that I understand most of what it show - but what I found was unmistakable.

To cut a long story short - with SDHelper running Windows Explorer/My Computer spent several seconds checking the Cookies folder and did so for every change of folder. Clearing the Cookies folder removed the delay.

I am not in the habit of clearing my Cookies folder - I remove the ones flagged as Spyware but leave the rest - and it was never a problem under Spybot v1.4 or v1.5 - but Spybot v1.6 obviously reacts badly to excessive numbers of cookies. Not sure how many cookies it takes to cause a noticeable delay but I had around 2,300 cookies on one pc and 3,100 on the other and was seeing approximately a 3 second delay on both computers.

Process Monitor showed that each time you Open a folder in Windows Explorer (with SDHelper running) you see thousands of requests called "Query_Standard_Information_File" which was accessing the file "C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Cookies\index.dat". The log revealed that my system made just over 6,500 identical requests to access the Index.dat file during the 3 second delay - which stopped anything else from happening. Disable SDHelper and these requests do not happen - and the folder contents displays instantly.

Something has changed in the way SDHelper interacts with Windows Explorer in the current version of Spybot.
Spybot v1.5.2 did not suffer this problem - this is new to Spybot v1.6

I first suspected it was the size of the Index.dat file (700KB) that was causing the problem - as this Index file never gets trimmed back when you delete cookies. But it is actually the number of cookies that causes the delay in Windows Explorer - just using the Delete Cookies option works even though the Index.dat file remains the same size.

So clear your Cookies folder and hopefully you too can use Spybot v1.6 with SDHelper enabled.

Sysinternals Process Monitor Links:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/s...s/default.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/s.../bb896645.aspx
Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity.

[Greyfox]

Good find Doug,

Your findings also probably answer why I have never experienced this problem. All my computers are set to clear out the temporary internet files folder at the end of each session (IE7->Tools->Advanced->Security section->Empty temporary Internet files folder when browser is closed). In addition they also use 3rd party cookie control software to restrict cookies to a very small "allowed" list. (after exit from the browser index.dat is around 32K)

I also keep Spybot's normal file set so it "scans for usage track checks only" and after any on line session involving internet banking or other secure transactions run a quick scan and delete all tracking entries found (except for those items I have specifically excluded). I generally only do one full (all available checks) scan per week after updating.

Hopefully your find will solve the problem for many users.

[DougCuk]

Thanks Greyfox - it took some persistance to find.

I too keep my Internet Cache files under strict control but have never encountered an issue with the Cookies folder before - this is a new problem with Spybot v1.6 that didn't occur under v1.5

The other conclusion from this solution is that we did indeed have two seperate SDHelper issues.
The slowdown of the IE7 browser caused by SDHelper - that others have reported - must be due to a different as yet unknown quirk of Spybot v1.6 - as I have never observed this problem on my system. Does make me wonder if SDHelper is bogging down on some other folder somewhere that some users do not clear.

The large Domains List theory suggested by Spybot Sandra appears to be looking unlikely as a cause but we could do with some more testers - see here: http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=30975&page=4

[6ixed]

I also have to say, excellent research and analysis into the source of the sdhelper hiccups, Doug.

[DougCuk]

Now we just need someone suffering the IE7 slowdown to do the same analysis and we will have SDHelper back under control again!

[julian81]

Hello Doug,

clearing the cookies folder solved my IE slowdown problem. But in my opinion this workaround should only be a temporary solution.


Regards, Julian

[DougCuk]

Thanks for that Julian81 - interesting result.
Now we need a few more to try this fix for the IE7 slowdown problerm.