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Internet Explorer

Excludes Microsoft's "Edge" which is the default browser in Windows 10.  Note: In Windows 10, the Internet Explorer is still available!  See also Addressbar vs. Searchbar

Auto updates (IE)

IE may automatically update even if you have Windows set not to.  See December 2014

So if you have sites that do not work correctly under the latest version, uninstall that version via the Control Panel > Programs and Feature > View Installed Updates (upper left).  
IE is down the list a ways...

Once uninstall is complete and you rebooted, open IE and from the Tools menu, select About IE then uncheck the update option.

Status bar

Hyperlinks are not always what you expect.  In the Internet Explorer, hyperlinks show their true destination in the status bar...  For example, a link may read  http://www.microsoft.com  But looking at the status bar you may see

To turn it on, press Alt to see the menus and from the View menu > Toolbars, click Status bar

Address bar

It seems like with every update it's two steps forward and one backward.  Internet Explorer address bar (by default) is very short, making it difficult to see where you are at or to type an address...

Fortunately you can easily stretch out the bar to reveal more of the address making it easier to work with.  Simply hover the cursor at the right edge of the box and it will become a double arrow cursor.  Click, hold and stretch the box to a more usable size...

Note: The when typing in address bar, IE will autofill from your History - this is very different than saved Favorites.

 

Tools menu

IE 9+ is rated as a more secure browser, but it also has a very different appearance.  If you are looking for the favorites button, it is now in the upper right corner and just to the right of it is the Tools menu button.

No Menus

If you use Internet Explorer and are missing the Menu bar, you can touch the Alt key to have it temporarily appear.  Once the toolbar appears, you can select Toolbars then click Menu Bar to turn it on permanently.

IE Refreshing pages

When browsing the Internet your browser may or may not be showing you the latest page update. 

This problem seems especially problematic with IE 9 and PDF files that open in Adobe Acrobat.  

To insure you are seeing the latest page update in its entirety, change the Internet option from Automatically - to - Every time I visit...

That is found under the Tools menu > Internet options > Browsing History settings button...

New Tab / New Window

If you have multiple tabs open then click and drag one of the tabs slightly.  It will open that site in a whole new window...

And just to clarify for a few...  The area we have boxed in red is the actual address bar.  Any other bar you can type an address into would be a search bar...  So, when you want to go to a specific site immediately, type it in the proper address bar...  

Creating a Desktop Shortcut

If you would like (handy) a shortcut for a website on your Desktop, see our January '16 newsletter.

Internet Explorer issues

IE can have various issues, here are a few of the common ones... See our November 2016 newsletter for IE AND Google Chrome hang issues.

IE11 will not install

After rebuilding our computer because of a Windows 10 update that crashed it out (see January '16 newsletter), we reinstalled the original Windows 7.  Installed all updates (stopping short of the Windows 10 prompt update), but next on the list was IE11, especial since IE10 and earlier are no longer supported.  Sorry to digress...

So while trying to install IE11, we continually got the 9C59 error and no matter what fixes (including all found at Microsoft support), we found the same error kept returning. 

The final fix?  It was hiding in plain site.  Cleanmgr selecting all options!  Geez, could it have been any easier?

Not remembering passwords

NOTE/WARNING:  Passwords stored are not encrypted and there are "tools" on the Internet that can read your saved user ID and passwords.

Things to try:

Websites looks too small

Chances are good the zoom is not at 100%. 

This can easily occur if you have a wheel mouse.  Holding the Ctrl key and spinning the wheel zooms in and out and certain combinations of keys will also zoom.

A few ways to correct this are:

  • Press Ctrl and 0 (zero)
  • From the View menu open the View menu > Zoom then 100%
  • From the Status bar (lower right), select 100%
Problems at secure sites

If you're having problems with secure websites, check the browser's security settings: 

Tools > Internet options > Advanced, then near the bottom of the list, place check marks in the "Use TLS..." options as necessary to make the secure site respond. 

Worse case (but only if necessary), click the Reset button.

If that does not solve the problem, try working through the fixes found in this article from Microsoft.

HOWEVER:  Apparently the SSL 3.0 security mode is a risk and Microsoft's is recommending that option be turned off. 

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3009008#FixItForMe
Try running in a compatible mode

If IE does not work correctly at some sites, you could try running that (those) sites in the compatible mode.

At whatever site, press the F12 key, select the Emulation mode options and change to a previous version...

IE Crashes out or...

Iexplore.exe process still running after closing

This causes Windows to run slow!  See our November 2016 newsletter.

Opens slowly

Mostly likely due to a bad Internet add-on.   To correct this, go to the Control Panel (see Control Panel hints) and from the Internet options, move to the Programs (tab) and select Manage Add-ons.

Change the list to show All add-ons...

Look through the list, select anything you do not recognize and disable it. 

You can always re-enable if you find you need it.

 You can get more information about a particular add-on by selecting it then clicking the

More information link. If you are unsure what something is, "Google it"...

IE Crashing Out?

Scan for viruses, junkware and malware.  See our Hijacked! page

If the Internet Explorer is crashing out, try turning off the memory protection option...

From the Control Panel's Internet Options, go to the Advanced tab and near the bottom of the list, uncheck the Enable memory... option.

If that option is unavailable/gray, close the options and Control Panel then look for the Internet icon under the Start menu, right click and Run as Administrator. 

Then open Internet Options > Advanced tab and try again.

If you still have problems getting there, look for an Internet Safe mode icon and try again...

Don't forget to look under the Programs tab > Manage Add-ons for unknown items and toolbars then disable those... 

Note:  The Reset button may do more harm than good.  It resets everything plus disables almost all Add-ons...

IE History
You can change what is deleted (and not) when you  press the delete history button.

In the Internet Options, click the delete button to see the form on the right.  In there select those items you wish to delete. 

The settings we have here are fairly typical where the temporary files and cookies are deleted but not the History, Forms or Passwords.

If you have the Delete History on exit option checked (left form), it will follow whatever settings you have in the Delete Browsing History for (right form).

If you continue to have odd log on problems or problems with passwords or forms, try this one time:

Try clearing everything:
Processes continue to run

As we discussed in our Nov 16 newsletter, we are seeing an occasional hanging of the Internet Explorer's processes, i.e., we "X" out of the browsers but the process does not end.  As a results, that continuing process chews up processor cycles and makes the computer run slower.  We still see this problem and since we have not pinned down why this occurs, we now run a small batch file killing all browser processes when we are done on the Internet.

To create a batch file: Open Notepad (using the Window key+R, Run command), enter the 2 lines as shown below, then save as... Change the Save as type to; All files then type a file name to include the ".bat" extension, e.g. KillProcesses.bat

That batch file contains two lines:

C:\Windows\System32\taskkill.exe /im iexplore.exe /f

C:\Windows\System32\taskkill.exe /im chrome.exe /f