Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with internetexplorer

Print IE URLs

KRS — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:07:51 -0800

Printing the URLs of IE Favorites I want to print the names and URLs of a bunch of Internet Explorer Favorites. If I export them and load the HTML file into IE, I get just the names as links. If I load the HTML file into Word, the URLs are there, but surrounded by garbage.

Help me not hate IE8?

notashroom — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:15:13 -0800

How do I make IE8 suck less? Specifically, I hate the way it handles tabs. I've been using tabbed browsing for 10 years and have gotten used to doing things a particular way. Tabs on top, new unrelated tabs opened at the far right, new related tabs opened to the immediate right of whichever tab they were opened from, etc.

At work, I have to use Internet Explorer. We've just upgraded to IE8 this week, and my tabs are a mess. I've been using IE7Pro to help manage tabs in IE (and add some other functionality like URL blocking), and I updated it after updating IE, but my tabs are a mess and the option to select whether new tabs open at the end or next to the current tab seems to have disappeared. Now they all open at the end and it's harder for me to manage the tabs.

IE8 introduces "tab groups", which may be the only way to keep my tabs where they're supposed to be, but the tab groups have stupid distracting colors on the tabs, and my Attention Deficit ... Look, A Bunny! brain keeps sending my eyes up to look at the shiny colored tabs instead of the pages, so I turned off tab groups.

Also, IE7Pro used to handle reopening my last browser session after a close or a crash, but it no longer does that. Now, IE opens with my corporate home page and one seemingly randomly selected tab from my last browser session, and the menu on new tabs allows me to reopen my last session but requires that extra, annoying step. I haven't had a crash yet, so I don't know if either IE8 or IE7Pro will reopen my tabs after a crash.

What can I do to get my tabs back under control? Is there a competitor for IE7Pro that I should know about? Hidden registry options I could change to do away with the colors in tab groups? Some way to revert the system to IE7 and make the network vendor think it's on IE8 and in compliance? An updated TweakUI or similar that would let me fix it the way I like it?

Can greasemonkey open a link in a different browser?

Roger Dodger — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:51:32 -0800

Is it possible to use a greasemonkey script in Firefox to open specific links in Internet Explorer? If so, what would it look like? The particular element in the HTML page is an input button which executes some javascript, which opens a different webapp in a new browser window. However, that webapp only works with IE, and I use Firefox. The element looks similar to this:

<input value="New Webapp"  class="btn" name="webapp" onclick="openIntegration('/servlet/servlet.Integration?scontrolCaching=1&lid=00b70000000zL1t&eid=50070000009tNYv&ic=1', 'height=600,location=no,resizable=yes,toolbar=no,status=no,menubar=no,scrollbars=1', 1)" title="New Webapp" type="button" />

The openIntegration function (which sits in a separate .js file) looks like this:

function openIntegration(url, props, positionType) {

    var newWindow = window.open(url, "_blank", props, false);

    if (positionType == 2){

        newWindow.moveTo(0, 0);

    } else if (positionType == 0){

        newWindow.moveTo(0, 0);

        newWindow.resizeTo(self.screen.width, self.screen.height);

    }

}

Can javascript be used to specify a browser other than default? How would I go about doing this?

Wordpress plugin incompatibility

Danniman — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:09:59 -0800

Wordpress Filter: Plugin incompatibility with my theme - website screws up on IE. How do I fix it? 2 of my plugins (Contact Form 7, Post Tabs) give a java script error when enabled on this site. The js error doesn't do much in firefox but it renders the whole site disfunctional in IE ( drop down nav doesn't work, tabs under the headline slider don't work, etc).

In IE, when I have debugging enabled, I get an error pop-up stating that there is a error on Line 89. After I click "debug", this is what is shown:

Microsoft JScript runtime error: Object doesn't support this property or method

Inside the file, the following code is highlighted on line 89:

{return jQuery.easing[jQuery.easing.def](x,t,b,c,d);}

So how do I fix this issue in IE? Do I need to contact the plugin author to check if they are using the latest jQuery? ( the theme author says that he is using the latest jQuery) Is there any way around this issue?

Yet another little IE annoyance

flabdablet — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:48:41 -0800

How is Apparitions (Media) infecting my IE window title? This is harmless, as far as I can tell, but I've been annoyed by it often enough now to make it worth my while wasting an AskMe question on.

I work on school computers in Victoria, Australia. In two separate schools, at various times over the last five years, I have occasionally seen Internet Explorer's window title changed to "Microsoft Internet Explorer provided by Apparitions (Media)". Outlook Express's window title is similarly affected. Searching the registry for "Apparitions" results in exactly two matches - the IE and OE window title strings. Deleting these restores the default window labels. As far as I can tell, there is no actual malware running on any of these computers - just the bogus window titles.

Unusually, Googling that window title doesn't get me reports of similar things happening to other people.

Have any of you ever seen this specific window title hijack before, and if so, have you managed to track down the software or website responsible?

Apparition (not Apparitions) Media has a website and does indeed appear to be an up-itself marketing organization. I'm prepared to believe this is their fault. But embedded in what product that Victorian school staff or students might be using?

Multiple versions of IE

kidbritish — Sun, 03 May 2009 10:29:57 -0800

In Windows XP, what is the best way to keep Internet Explorer versions 6, 7, and 8 all installed simultaneously? This is for the purpose of testing websites.
When I say "best", I mean the browsers should function normally, and it should be unlikely to cause other problems with the system.
I've seen Multiple-IE, from 2006, which doesn't seem to go past IE6, and Internet Explorer Collection which looks promising. But I'm hesitant to install strange hacks until I've had some input from people more knowledgeable. Do any of you have experience doing this?

How do I make Twhirl recognize Safari as my default browser?

deern the headlice — Fri, 01 May 2009 09:18:24 -0800

How do I make Twhirl recognize Safari as my default browser? When I click links from inside Twhirl, it opens pages in IE7. I have already tried going to:

Start->Set Progam Access and Defaults->Custom and told the system to use Safari. But once I save my settings and reboot the machine, it's right back to using IE7.

I've also gone to Control Panel->Internet Options->Programs, but there's nothing to let me unselect IE7 as default.

Yep, I use computers every day and this one's got me boggled. Thanks guys.

CSS positioning problem in IE.

Uncle — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:55:21 -0800

Why does my sidebar line up fine in Firefox but not IE? So I'm rebuilding my theatre company's website and i can't for the life of me get the sidebar to line up right in IE. (screen shot) The side bar is contained in a div which is floated to the right in a div that contains the whole body.
Here is the CSS.
Here is the HTML for the sidebar.
And here is the main page.
Thanks.

Do I need to upgrade to IE7/8 if I don't browse with IE?

ravcasleygera — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 05:29:26 -0800

I just reformatted an XP laptop and installed Service Pack 3. I don't use Internet Explorer for browsing - do I need to upgrade to IE7/8 anyway, just for in-built security? Or can I safely leave it at 6 if I don't use it to browse? Apologies if this question seems really, really dumb.

I'd like a yahoo pipe badge to display properly

Baud — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 08:09:59 -0800

I'd like a yahoo pipe badge to display properly (and vertically) in Internet Explorer Firefox not being (yet) the most-used browser in the world, I recently discovered how painful it is to display properly a yahoo pipe badge.

this page displays something very flat that needs to be scrolled.

How can I display it on the full height of the page ?

Thanks in advance !

The pesky Plesk favicon from hell won't leave me alone.

fontophilic — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:34:46 -0800

The pesky Plesk favicon from hell won't leave me alone. If you're using vista and IE, can you spare a moment? I've recently started working on this website. If you're using vista and IE, can you take a peek and tell me what the favicon (tiny picture next to the URL in the address bar) looks like?

The organization that hired me originally bought the website from someone thats hosting it on a resellers account, and has installed plesk cp. When I first got control of the site, it was using a default drupal favicon. I've overwritten all the favicon.ico's I can find. I've even changed the head in the template to point to an absolute file path. Drupal dude icon is gone, but now it's been replaced by the red plesk sunburst favixon in Visa with IE7.

XP with IE7, firefox, safari, and ubuntu browser all show the correct blue star favicon. Of course my boss is using Vista and IE7, and I need to keep her happy. I understand that Vista stores favicons in a low integrity cache which leads to much headaches. Is there some trick to getting around this?

(and yes it's a properly encoded ico)

Thanks.

Multiple JREs with IE7?

tommasz — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:40:01 -0800

My company forces the use of Internet Explorer for a number of internal sites. Now, they're also enforcing the use of an old version of Java (1.4.2_06) instead of just warning you. The trouble is I have Java 6 installed and despite also having 1.4.2_06 installed, IE 7 refuses to use it. I have a number of very useful Java apps that require Java 6 so right now I have to uninstall Java 6 to access the sites and then re-install when I'm done. This is painful but not fatal since I don't use them in my day-to-day work but I'd still like to not have to do this.

I've done some Google searching, but other than finding other people with the same question, I haven't found any solutions. I'm sure Java developers and testers must also have this problem, how do they solve it?

Dynamically automate my appointment calendar in IE with today's date in the link?

unclezeb — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:57:59 -0800

Help me create a short cut that opens an Internet Explorer webpage with part of the link set to change dynamically to today's date (i.e., http://boingboing.net/2009/01/27/ if I clicked on it yesterday, http://boingboing.net/2009/01/28/ if I clicked on it today). Can this be done? My office lets me see a calendar of appointments with clients through a web-page which accesses information from our intranet. It only opens via Internet Explorer. Part of the link includes the date of those appointments:
=Date(2009,1,7)

Currently, I simply created a shortcut to a given date (above) and manually change it then go to the new date as entered (i.e., =Date(2009,1,28)).

I would like to be able to have a shortcut which dynamically updates the date to "today" ... so I can click on the shortcut and be directed to a page with today's appointments rather than manually altering the date in the link each time.

Any ideas short of Autohotkey?

Thanks a million!

Creating links to Adobe files

Joleta — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 08:26:34 -0800

How can I link to downloadable Adobe Illustrator and EPS documents on our intranet? We'd like to make our corporate logos available in in a variety of formats on our intranet, for download by employees who have graphics programs. We all use IE 6.0 by corporate mandate. (I don't have the problem described below when I use Firefox, but that's not an option for other employees.)

I uploaded the logos as Photoshop, Illustrator and EPS files and created links to them. When I click on a Photoshop file, I get a box with the option to open or save the file, but when I click on an Illustrator file I get nothing. If I right-click on an Illustrator file, the only "Save As..." option I get is Adobe Acrobat (PDF). My EPS file links allow saving only as a PostScript file, through either left or right clicks. How can I make my Illustrator/EPS files available for download?

Help me avoid reloading my Vostro 1700 XP image!!!!

littleredwagon — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:51:02 -0800

Both latest IE and Firefox are hanging. I get the following two errors in Event Viewer Application Log: 1. Application Hang Hanging application firefox.exe, version 1.9.0.3188, hang module hungapp, version 0.0.0.0, hang address 0x00000000. 2. Fault bucket 943649184. I've run chkdsk...defrag...Dell diagnostics on memory and system. Nothing is jumping out. I've even run Ccleaner, nothing fixes this issue. My google-fu is failing me... Any ideas?

IE 8 beta has crashed and burned...

FatherDagon — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:10:28 -0800

IE 8 Beta has gone corrupted, and is causing all sorts of iertutil.dll related errors. Something went awry with the install of IE 8 in my freshly installed XP SP3 machine. I generally use Firefox for my browsing needs, but certain apps make calls for web data (the WoW launcher news feed, for example) and this causes a stream of errors "The ordinal 169 could not be located in the dynamic link library iertutil.dll". IE 8 itself will open on its own, but won't display anything - the window below each page tab is just blank white.

I decided to uninstall and then go back and install IE 7, however the uninstall process seems to have gone pear-shaped - the first time around I was able to go to Add/Remove Windows Components and remove IE, and on reboot try to use the IE 7 install exe. However, it looks like the uninstall never removed the files, and IE 7 won't install because it thinks IE8 is still installed. IE 8 won't install again because it thinks there's still a browser there. Add/Remove Components still has an entry for IE 8, but it's listed as 0.0 MB and any further removal attempts net no change... the progress bar flashes by in a second or so, but no files are removed, the entry is still there, and the error persists.

My specific question is - will replacing the iertutil.dll file in system32 correct this issue? I was able to move a fresh copy of the file from the temp dir that IE 8's failed re-install created, but I'll need to boot from BartPE or safe mode or something to replace the corrupted copy, since just about every XP process seems to access it (unlocker will shut out the processes using it, but that shuts down most of the OS, which then fires itself back up). So if I boot to DOS or something to replace it, will that cause cataclysmic failures in other areas? Are there predictable further issues elsewhere? Is there another approach I should take?

How do I make IE open files exactly like they open on my desktop?

alrightokay — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:58:55 -0800

How do I make IE open files as instructed? The way I view one type of file has been hijacked by another program. I have two portals that I must use IE to access for a client - portal A and portal B.

From portal A I download .tif files and view them in MS Office Document Imaging. This is my preferred program for this action.

From portal B I download and view .fni files and view them with IDM Viewer. The IDM viewer is my only option.

However, the IDM Viewer that I downloaded to view the .fni files has now hijacked the way I view .tif files on portal A. Even though I've changed the file associations in XP, the IDM Viewer keeps popping up to open .tif files on portal A. I only want the IDM Viewer to work on portal B.

The only way I can stop the hijack is to remove the IDM viewer but I still need it to view files from Portal B. Anyone out there have trouble w/ IE like this? Is it trouble w/ IE? Maybe the viewer is just awful...

Need help watching doggie daycare webcam

HotToddy — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:31:52 -0800

I want to take advantage of the webcam at doggie daycare; unfortunately, the instructions are for Internet Explorer and I'm on a Mac. Is there a way to make this work in Safari or Firefox? Details inside. I'm sorry, I'm clueless at this kind of thing, so please be gentle. Here are the instructions:

Open Internet Explorer
From the Tools menu, select Internet Options
Select the Security Tab, then highlight the Internet icon
Click on the Custom Level . . . button, which will open the Security Setting dialogue box
Scroll down to Download unsigned ActiveX controls and choose Prompt
Scroll down one more to Initialize and script ActiveX controls not makred as safe and choose Prompt
Select OK, Select OK again Go to pawstoplaylive.com

There's more, but those are the basic instructions. Thanks for your help!

IE javascript bug is kicking my ass

Paragon — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:06:40 -0800

Javascript/CSS and IE6/7: content called from a javascript file (a modified form of fontSizer) into an otherwise blank div appears and disappears intermittently in IE6/7. Help a newbie! I know enough Javascript to just squeak by, but this bug is bugging the hell out of me. The content written from a .js file (images and text) appears every time in Firefox but only sometimes in IE6/7. Sometimes a page reload will reveal it, sometimes returning to the page from another page on the site will reveal it.

My first guess was the peekaboo bug, but none of the fixes work and if I disable the pages' css the content still appears/disappears the same way.

The pages in question are still in development (i.e. not live), so MeFi Mail me for a URL.

Any ideas or suggestions on how to debug this are gratefully welcomed!

You won't steal my heart by stealing my focus

subbes — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 07:03:02 -0800

IE7 keeps stealing focus, even after I use TweakUI. I have to use IE for a work application. The app spawns a new popup window for each task I work on. Because I multitask and the network can be slow, I have multiple task windows open at once, usually at least one loading in the background while I work on the other.

Every time IE finishes loading a task window, that window pops to the front and steals focus.

I have used TweakUI to "prevent applications from stealing focus" but IE seems not to listen. Help me stop this annoying behavior and keep sane!

(Windows XP professional, SP2, IE 7.0.5730.11)

How do I take a paged-down screenshot in Internet Explorer using Vista for free without watermarks?

adi — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:34:57 -0800

How do I take a paged-down screenshot in Internet Explorer using Vista for free without watermarks? I tried using IE Screenshot Pro, but the trial puts a big watermark on everything. I need the screenshot to page down and stitch it all together.

The page does not render correctly in FireFox, so no extension for the fox will work for me -- had to be IE.

Can this site be saved?

pammo — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:38:32 -0800

Webdeveloper Mefites, I come hat in hand. I enjoy design and created a site for my medical practice in iWeb. Now I realize it stinks in Explorer. Is there an easy way to remedy the situation? If not, what's a reasonable amount to pay someone to save me from myself? Please help. I'm feeling like a total dolt. I put a lot of work into my creation. I thought I'd checked things out in Explorer as I went along but this morning I had another look, and it's not pretty.

Here's what I've done so far: I did a bit of searching, and soon realized I may be out of my league in trying to translate CSS to something IE understands.

I posted this as a job on MetaFi Jobs but haven't had a bite.

So . . . can I clean up this mess myself? Or (more likely) do I need help? And if so, what's a fair price?

CSS help is needed

joelf — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:25:30 -0800

Can I make this work in IE the same as it does in Firefox? Here is the example i need some CSS help with. This works properly in Firefox, but needs some help in IE. Any suggestions?

Get this Microsoft out of my iTunes!

M.C. Lo-Carb! — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:22:36 -0800

I disabled Explorer with a fake proxy server address, and now I can't connect to the iTunes store. I don't want to go back to Explorer from Firefox, but I needs some new tunes! My laptop is a 2002 vintage bottom-shelf Toshiba running XP.

Much like this guy, who did not succeed in getting his question answered, I have an annoying popup adware problem that opens explorer, even though I haven't actually used it to search the Web for years.

So since you can't excise Explorer, I just disabled it. But apparently iTunes uses those settings to connect to the iTunes store. Is there a way I could make iTunes connect using Firefox's options, rather than Explorer's?

BTW, regarding the obvious solution, I have tried everything I could think of to get rid of the popup adware thing, and came to the conclusion long ago that it's just a permanent eccentricity of my computer.

Death by a thousand windows

mammary16 — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:33:45 -0800

I have a very specific problem with the online system at my work. I have a contracting job that requires me to log on to my work's online system (through Internet Explorer) and listen to audio clips. I work from home.

The system was first developed for essays, but 2 years ago it was adapted to play audio. It is clearly inefficient with system resources. But I thought I'd ask about this problem, since it does really cut into my efficiency.

Many of my colleagues (maybe 5%) have the same problem I do:

When going between audio clips, a small Internet Explorer window appears in the bottom right of the screen. It usually just flashes and goes away. Sometimes, however, it stays permanently - so much so that I can't even close it (not by using task manager; not by right-clicking and choosing "close").

These windows really cripple my computer. Usually after I get two of these, the audio will just not load on my computer. Additionally, I can't open up other programs - or if I can, they open up very limited. Windows notepad, for example, will sometimes open, but the menus at the top will not load.

The system uses Java - although it doesn't work very well in versions of java past 1.50-11. Additionally, the system requires use of the *.ogg patch.

I've developed a weird solution that helps. My solution has been to open up about 25 internet explorer windows and log on to the system with one of them. Whenever I get a freeze (one of those little windows freezes) I close one of the IE windows and it seems to free up system resources for a while. This allows me to work much longer, because without those other windows, I reach a point - within a half hour - where I have no memory left to load any of the audio.

When I run out of IE windows (and this often means I'll have about 8 frozen little windows that refuse to close) I restart my computer. I usually have to do this about once every 8 hour shift.

Question: Is there anything I can do on my end to avoid this problem? As I said, some of my colleagues do not have this problem. I have Windows XP, running on a Lenovo Thinkpad T60. This problem has been with me since the beginning (2 years ago) and my computer has undergone many changes. I have a great deal of free hard drive space, and generally keep very few programs running (I've got a very clean computer). I've tried different upgrades of IE and many different versions of java, and of course my company has tried a variety of things. The general policy with tech support is not to be concerned about this.

That said, my company isn't Metafilter. Maybe you ragtag group of misfits have an idea.