Tag Archives: ie7

no menu bar on ie7

Computer Aid Posted on by

This PC had an infection… but after the infection was cleared, Internet Explorer 7 still would not work.

I eventually did an offline malware scan, to be sure of removing any sneaky infections.

Eventually, I could receive emails, and I could browse the internet with Firefox… but still no IE7.

Next, I tried: Start -> control panel -> internet options -> Advanced -> Reset internet explorer settings.

I was surprised that I still couldn’t browse the net, and also couldn’t get the menu bar to appear… I usually right-click on a blank part of another bar, and select “menu bar” on the context menu… but no context menu would appear.

I eventually made it appear by pressing the Alt key (on the keyboard), then view -> toolbars -> menu bar

After that I managed to get to the microsoft website, do an update (particularly the update to ie8 ), then everything fell into place and worked correctly!

I’ve since noticed that pressing Alt will make menu bars appear on many other applications like Microsoft Messenger. very useful keyboard shortcut!

General Failure. The URL was: xyz Application not found

Computer Aid Posted on by

PC with Vista, and customer can no longer click on a link in outlook.

Instead, a window pops up, saying: General failure. The URL was: {the url you want to see.html} Application not found.

I ask: “when did this start happening?”, and the customer admits he had installed google chrome, but didn’t understand what it did, so he “removed it” (intending to go back to IE7).

I wan’t going to ask the details on how he removed it, as it sound like a simple fix.

A quick looks around the net show an easy fix for XP, but all sorts of registry changes, if you are using vista and IE7.

I found a simpler solution, that also works with Vista:

  • Within IE7, go tools -> internet options (or within control panel: internet options)
  • Advanced -> reset internet explorer settings -> reset -> reset

Please note that this will disable toolbars, reset cookies, reset home pages, search providers (most people won’t notice if this happens anyway).

repair install of XP (SP2 or SP3) without uninstalling IE7

Computer Aid Posted on by

This is a mistake that is so easy to do, that I have done it twice 🙁

It seems that the internet is littered with victims who have done a repair install of XP (SP2 or SP3), only to find that internet explorer 6 no longer works, and upgrading back to ie7 is nearly impossible. Thanks again, Microsoft.

I’ve found that ie 6 will usually load the home page, but any further browsing results in 2 blank ie6 windows appearing, and then ie6 stops responding.

Its easy enough to avoid this: uninstall ie7 BEFORE performing a repair install of XP.

Of course many of us find we cannot uninstall ie7 because XP is stuffed in some way (hence the need to do a repair install in the first place!)

Or if you are like me: oops, I just forgot to uninstall ie7

The reason is that after a repair install, you are left with system files that are a combination of ie6 and ie7

Anyway, microsoft have a page that explains what to do if you didn’t uninstall ie7 before the repair… but its only after you have read half way down the page, that you realise that the instructions are for fixing the ie6/ie7 problem with the repair install.

Basically, if you have XP SP2 or SP3, then you need to start the XP recovery console (you normally need an XP installation CD to boot from).

Boot from the XP CD. When prompted, press “R” to enter the recovery console

Enter the Administrator password when asked (for most people, its blank, so just press enter).

Now, enter the following commands:
CD ie7spuninst
batch Spuninst.txt

You might get a few errors (permission denied)

Once its all complete, enter:

exit

to restart the PC.

After this, I still had a damaged ie6, but I got around it like this:

– run the ie6 internet options (either from ie6->tools, or from the control panel)

– change the home page to microsoft.com

– start or re-start ie6 (so it goes to microsoft straight away

– on the MS website, go for the update option, and you will find all the MS updates will work (including ie7 !!!). Note: at first, I installed all the updates except ie7. I rebooted, then installed ie7.

– after a restart or two, the PC will finally be “fixed”.

I wonder if microsoft are trying to make XP worse, so that more people will consider “upgrading”…

ie 7 can act like a spambot!

Computer Aid Posted on by

I recently upgraded bad behaviour (from 2.0.23 to 2.0.24) on my blog, and found I couldn’t activate the new plugin (I got a http 403 error).

Reverting back to V 2.0.23, and everything was fine again.

At first, I thought it was a bug with bad behavior, but when I tried updating from firefox, bad behavior activated normally.

I went back to Maxthon (ie7), and found I was being blocked from my blog (error 403 again).

OK, looks like an IE7 problem.

I tried from another PC, and I could access computer-aid.com.au/blog without a problem

OK, the problem is with IE7, but only on my main PC.

I tried running IE7 in safe mode, but the problem persisted.

I tried uninstalling ie7, then reinstalling it. But that didn’t fix things.

I used winmerge, so I could see what had changed between bad behavior 2.0.34 and 2.0.24.

The only obvious difference was a check for the string “User-agent: “.

I commented out that check within BB, and IE7 was working again… but this is just a work-around. I want to know the reason for this problem.

I found a nice site called: http://whatsmyuseragent.com/

And I find my user agent was: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; User-agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; http://bsalsa.com) ; MAXTHON 2.0)

Ok, some duplication, and a suspicious entry for bsalsa.com

A quick web search gets me a solution, but not much more.

I start regedit, go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet SettingsUser AgentPost Platform

and then delete the badly formed user agent value (there was only one value).

I restart maxthon (ie7), reinstall BB 2.0.24, and I can finally work on my blog again.

Please: I don’t want any comments about browser X is better than maxthon. I like maxthon. I’ve been using it for many many years, and I’m happy with it.

I also use ie7, firefox, opera, safari, chrome… but maxthon does just what I want.

internet explorer won’t show some websites

Computer Aid Posted on by

Sometimes, possibly after (or during) a spyware infection, you can find that internet explorer 7 will appear to lock up while displaying some websites.

There seems to be no pattern to what will not show.

I saw an example of this recently… after removing some spyware, everything seemed normal.

But a particular internet banking website refused to work (after pressing the login button, another tab would appear, and than ie7 refused to respond… it needed an “end task” from the task manager!)… yet other banking websites worked perfectly.

I also tried to download firefox, but that also crashed IE7.

And a java update didn’t fix anything either.

How do you fix it without running to firefox / opera / safari ? (to be honest I’m not a big fan of ie7, but I do like maxthon):

control panel -> internet options -> programs -> manage add-ons

Then disable any rubbish add-ons (eg anything from google, yahoo, mywebsearch, and anything you are not sure of)

Try not to disable any plugins from microsoft, Sun, and Adobe.

I’m starting to believe that certain combinations of plugins can cause some difficult to diagnose problems.

norton 360 on vista: ie7 generates “engine error” on some secure sites

Computer Aid Posted on by

I had a customer who couldn’t connect to certain websites (always secure websites, eg: when paying for movie tickets online).

IE7 would display “engine error” on the fraud monitoring bar near the top.

After changing some settings I eventually find that norton 360 is the culprit. The solution (after a search of the internet) was to disable Norton transaction security (despite many suggestions to reinstall Norton, I’m reluctant to do so, as the problem could just reappear again…)

I’ll need to monitor the Norton / Symantec website, and hopefully they will pull their finger out, and provide a patch to fix the problem (and hopefully not release such buggy software in the future… that will be a first for them).

Irritating IE7 menu bar behaviour

Computer Aid Posted on by

I (and many of you) have tried IE7 by now.

Although it is more secure, I find 2 things irritating (so far):

  1. It doesn’t have a menu bar by default. Yes, Windows Media Player is similar. Yes, MS want to make things as non-technical as they can. Yes it means they can put IE7 into settop boxes, mobile phones, and kitchen sinks, without confusing ordinary people. Yes, you can easily put it back (I got it back on my 5th or 6th guess).
  2. You can’t move the various “bars” around. Most of you are used to having the menu bar at the top, just below the window title. But I cannot move the @#$%*& bar anywhere. In fact, I don’t seem to be able to move much at all. In fact, to move the menu bar to its “rightful” place, I need to edit the registry (which very few people are game to try). To fix it, just do a google search on: moving ie7 “menu bar”

I hope IE7.01 will address these problems. Not that I care much, since I use Maxthon, but because its going to confuse a lot of people.