I currently run Microsoft Windows Vista Business, with Internet Explorer 7 (7.0.6001.18000). I’ve been using IE7 since its beta stage (on Windows XP to begin with) and have never had this problem… After I upgraded to Windows Vista, I’ve noticed serious memory leak / problems with the browser.
IE has been running for about 3 hours. In total, I’ve opened (and closed) between 30 - 40 tabs. Then suddenly, when inspired to check the news online, my computer started to feel extremely sluggish… So I opened up task manager, expecting to see IE7 eating up all my resources as I’ve seen before. And that’s exactly what I found.
Good lord, what is going on? So I closed IE, and waited several seconds for the system to free up some memory. Then restarted IE7 to write this entry.
As far as I can see, it seems to be a problem with AJAX (as I’ve noticed IE7 feasting on my memory most often after I’ve been on Facebook and other AJAX websites), and after some digging, found:
http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=105535, which seems to be a bug Microsoft refuses to address. I have also tried running IE in safe mode, or without any add-ons but to no avail.
Speaking of which, I currently have one IE7 window opened, running for less than 20 minutes with 6 tabs running… And memory usage has jumped to 144MB. What?!
I really do want to stick with IE7, and doubt I’ll ever fully convert to an alternative such as Firefox, as it’s just not to my taste. I don’t wish to turn this post into a IE7 vs. Firefox debate, but am really needing a solution!
So, has anyone else found they also have this problem? I would love to hear any advice anyone has on fixing this!
May 17th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I too had this problem, searching for solutions on Google brings me to this site. Any fixes? I also found this IE7 vs Firefox memory comparison
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=208475
Maybe it’s really time to move to Firefox and uninstall internet explorer!
May 17th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I have vista too, but I use explorer only to watch sites which do not run under other browsers…
But when I bought a notebook, I couldn’t choose the system and anyway, if I wanted to do something for school, I had to use windows, because the whole world lives only in windows…
I do not know, if ManionX will be here again, but you can have windows without explorer? I had 98 and I always had problems with explorer, even if I reinstalled the system. Then I just started to use linux instead of windows
June 15th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I’m running Vista Ultimate SP1 with IE7, having this issue too. When I checked the Task Manager after running facebook for less than an hour, the memory taken is about 450MB.
And ironically, the download of a 24MB file makes IE7 says “out of memory”, and in fact my harddisk has lots of empty spaces and my RAM is 4GB.
July 1st, 2008 at 3:24 pm
looks like lots of people are having this issue.
Why couldn’t the Vista SP1 solve this!
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:52 pm
It doesn’t matter how much RAM you have. Eventually IE7’s memory usage will attack. If I am lucky, I will be able to leave Internet Explorer running for 2 or so hours before I need to force end it.
Anyone find a solution? I plan to move to Firefox 3 soon.
July 4th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Well, it’s not just a matter of IE7 on Vista. The same problem is plaguing Windows XP too, no matter whether SP2 or SP3. I have to close it every time through Task Manager, to get the memory back…
July 5th, 2008 at 2:22 am
I use Firefox, and it also has a memory leak problem… Thinking of moving back to IE, but reading this has scared me away somewhat…. Any solutions to IE7’s memory leak yet?
July 17th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Same problem here!!! Running IE7 on WindowsXP, IE eating up all my memory with only one-two tabs active.
Any fixes?
July 25th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
I just received a Demonoid invitation code, thanks Tim!
I was just browing the blog, and I am having this problem. Move to Firefox 3 and all problems be solved!
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:50 pm
I think you’re all looking in the wrong place ppl,
I’ve arrived at this page because im trying to find a cure to an ajax problem, which is resulting in the same issues described here,
it appears to be a problem in looping ajax calls, and explorer tends to eat up memory in chunks of 4 - 8k at each loop, as a test i left a browser counting using ajax and in 4 hours it consumed almost 600mb of memory,
This isnt programming errors on the developers part, nor is it IE at fault, it more appears to be a bug in javascript itself, hopefully there’ll be a cure soon.