IE Crashes with Embedded Content
We’ve gotten quite a few calls about this so I’ll post here in case any one else notices the problem. We received multiple calls about Internet Explorer giving a dialog about allowing ActiveX and then promptly crashing once you hit OK. This happened with Quicktime content but it may occur with any content type.
After much research and deduction I narrowed it down to a windows update with ID of KB912812. This security update includes a non-security update with ID of KB912945. If you didn’t know Microsoft lost a patent lawsuit with Eolas that led them to change how IE handled embedded content. In the process apparently they changed more then just adding a pop-up. After some more deduction I found that if you only have the EMBED tag without an OBJECT tag wrapping it IE will crash and burn. Add the OBJECT wrapper and everything is OK. I hope this helped anyone who is seeing this problem as well. There are also workarounds to get rid of the pop-up that uses Javascript but I was just happy to keep IE running. Here are some resources:
- Internet Explorer ActiveX update
- Microsoft Security Advisory (912945)
- Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-013: Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (912812)
- Apple: Preparing Websites with Quicktime Content for the IE Update
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