Registry Hive

[HarryStottle]

Freezes and registry locks don't seem tightly related, in the sense that I doubt one is causing the other. But both may be caused by the same thing -- for instance by a conflicting security product. Can you think of one?

Nothing obvious. I'm using Antivir for viral protection, Zonealarm Pro for firewall and access protection and - within Firefox - Noscript and Adblock.

In any case you can try Process Explorer from Microsoft to see what's locking the registry. Use the Find menu and search for RegHive.

good idea. I'll leave it open and see what becomes visible (if anything) when the next freeze happens...

As we speak, Process explorer has just shown that Sandboxie keeps hold of the hive when I shut down the browser - Unless I explicitly delete the Sandbox. Which seems reasonable...

[HarryStottle]

OK, the Process explorer did its job. The freeze occurs when "system" decides to take over. Believe it or not, it happened (again) just as I got to the word "system" in the previous sentence!

This is partly reassuring as I had feared it was a virus or trojan doing something nasty. At least I now know that windoze is still "in control".

I rang my WinCE engineer to ask what "system" was likely to be because the only thing I know called "system" is the registry hive. He thought it was the Services controller. But more importantly he reported that a number of his other clients are reporting similar problems with unpredictable freezes (and none of them are using Sandboxie) so we now speculate that it is could be the result of a recent windoze update or SP3 (which I'm running). I am not wholly convinced, however, as, for me at least, the problem ONLY happens when I'm browsing inside a sandbox.

[tzuk]

As we speak, Process explorer has just shown that Sandboxie keeps hold of the hive when I shut down the browser - Unless I explicitly delete the Sandbox. Which seems reasonable...

I'm afraid that doesn't seem reasonable at all to me. I don't understand how Process Explorer could show you that Sandboxie specifically holds the registry hive. It should show System. Can you be more specific with the details, or preferably, link to a screenshot?

[HarryStottle]

I'm afraid that doesn't seem reasonable at all to me. I don't understand how Process Explorer could show you that Sandboxie specifically holds the registry hive. It should show System. Can you be more specific with the details, or preferably, link to a screenshot?

No, apparently I can't. I can't seem to repeat the behaviour so I can only assume I hallucinated it! Or perhaps I did the search before shutting the browser, found the hive handles being held by Sandboxie, then shut the browser, failed to observe the handles being released and jumped to the conclusion that Sandboxie still had its grip, where all that was really happening was an unrefreshed screen...

In any case, nothing seems to be retaining hold on the hive at the moment - including the rogue that was causing the original report. Alles in ordnung (apart from the freezes) for the time being...

[tzuk]

I'm glad you don't experience the problem anymore, but I still don't know what you mean by "found the hive handles being held by Sandboxie". When I use Process Explorer in the same way I get two lines that say System holds the hive. That's the expected behavior. But if you don't get the problem anymore then it becomes a moot point.