I am posting this for information purposes and because there is a possible interaction with NIS 2009:
I installed IE 8 (official release today) on vista ultimate 32 bit. Everything seemed to go well. Except that I noticed that my sidebar analog clocks second hand had stopped. Tried a number of things to fix-Reboot, remove add again install-Restore original Microsoft gadgets, Ran registry cleaner-Searched for downloads of original clock to no available. When Added in the analog clock again, the clock was essentially frozen and no controls next to it and sidebar was at ~50% in "top process" a sidebar gadget that shows CPU usage. Removing the clock fixed. Rebooted and tried to install clock-does not show, etc...
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Well, I did a system restore (prior install of IE8) from safe mode and was back to IE7 and the sidebar clock was working perfectly. Had to update definitions--40 mbs or so-- for NIS 2009. Did that, and closed sidebar and re-downloaded IE8 installer (system restore had removed it).
Reinstalled IE8 and opened sidebar, so far so good. But needed to open Norton -Something needed fixing--If I remember correctly and as soon as I did analog clock froze and my "top Process" monitor showed sidebar at ~50%--waited a while, it stayed at about that value. rebooted- No change still at ~50% and analog clock frozen.
Removed clock from sidebar and usage went back to normal.
Something very odd here with IE 8 and sidebar and possibly NIS 2009 v.16.5)