7.1 R6 and IE 8 Kills Host Check

[tmull60_]

I am having an issue with some of my workstations. All running Windows XP, SP3 and IE 8. When a new user logs into the machine and logs into the VPN site, Host Checker never loads. It just hangs forever and IE stops responding.

The Juniper Installer Service is installed and running. If I copy the Juniper Networks folder from another users profile into the %APPDATA%\Juniper Networks directory of a user I am then able to connect and log in.

It seems like the ActiveX control is not launching and so Host Checker is never opened. Once Host Checker completes the user can log in and install Network Connect so I know the Installer service is working because this user does not have admin rights.

DEP was disabled and I also disabled the IE 8 memory protection feature as well. But still no host checker.

Anyone else see this?

[OTsai_]

We have also seen the same issue, but on hostchecker for UAC 4.1 R6. Workstations are Windows XP SP3 with IE8. When a new user logs into the UAC page, Host Checker never loads.

The Juniper Installer Service is installed and running. It seems like the ActiveX control is not launching and the Host Checker is never opened. We can see an [Object Error] message flash in the bottom of the IE8 window.

We have tried method 3 from Microsoft KB article 822798 with success, but this isn't a viable solution as we have thousands of computers and this fix only works per user, not per machine.

[BonnyGG_]

Take a look at the Microsoft "shell" directory called c:\windows\downloaded program files. That shell directory actually points to an area in the registry. This is where the Active-X components "live". Make sure the user has the necessary rights to that area in the registry. This area of the Windows registry is often controlled/locked down by GPOs.

Also make sure that the Juniper Installer Service was installed by someone with FULL Administrative rights.

[tmull60_]

Through a ton of work we were able to actually track down the cause if Host Checker not loading. The issue is user specific and not a machine issue. Other users on the same computer load fine. The Juniper service was installed as an admin and if Host Checker runs, everything else works fine including the install of Network Connect.

I found that for users having the issue the directory structure stored within %APPDATA%\Juniper Networks for Host Checker, Setup and Setup Client were all not present.

I assumed this would prompt Host Checker to be installed, but it didn't. I slowly went through the registry of the users profile and deleted all references to Juniper applications. I found that if i deleted the HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Juniper_Setup_Client and the HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Neoteries_Host_Checker keys Host Checker would then install without a problem for the user.

So our issue is being caused by the presence of the registry keys, but the users profile not having the actual directory structure in place.

I do not know how the folders were deleted. We recently upgraded to IE 8 and also went to Juniper 7.1 R6, but 99% of my users do not have the issue so I am now going back to past tickets to see if someone deleted the profile or maybe the fodlers.