links not getting through...strange

[Cryinbrian]

Hello all,

I have come across a new one. IE6 doesn't seem to be letting a new window open/connect to the hyperlink clicked on an existing window. This is after updating IE6, BTW. What happens is when I click the link in the loaded page, a new window starts but doesn't connect with the new page. It just sits there in the bottom bar and nothing happens. There isn't even a window, just the button! This also happens when I click links in emails. I see the button appear in the bottom, but nothing else. I tried a restore to when it did work, nothing. I tried the IE Repair tool, nothing. Is anyone familiar with this problem and what can be done to fix it? I don't seem to have any other problems. I mean, I can be here, but if I click a link that opens a new window in IE6 I get nothing. I did a virus scan, nothing. Anyone know what's up?
Thanks.

[Dudley]

Try repairing IE6 via the Add\Remove applet. Select IE for removal but instead of removing it chose Repair.

Afterthought: Do you have any type of ad\pop-up stopper working"? I had one (AdShield??) that would stop another window until I depressed Ctrl during the link selection.

[Cryinbrian]

Thanks Dudley for the prompt reply...

I'll try your solution. I did not have any pop-up killers running, although I use pop-up stopper...it just wasn't on at the time. I even tried going without my firewall(ZA) to no avail. I'll try your idea and get back to ya.

Thanks, Bud!

CB

[b1kra]

Hi Cryinbrian

If you do run pop-up stopper there is information via the search at the top of the page regarding holding a key down while clicking that will allow the page to open, I cannot remenber the key It is the alt I think. I had a problem whin I had pop-up stopper running and someone told me the trick. That was long ago. I don't use pus now I use POW and it only closes what you tell it to and then it will close it whenever it comes up between that and New I.E. window maximizer Pop up function I am happy and no side effects related to hyper links. POP-UP Stopper is a good app but Iit does have a side effect on links and new IE windows.

Hope the repair of IE 6.0 works for ya. I had to go back to 5.5 SR2 as 6.0 behaved poorly on my system. If it works, as it does on my wife's machine, use it. It always crapped out on my system and wanted to keep sending error reports and restarting the app ad I had to start over too many times. Tried to fix it and it was nothing that could be fixed on my system. So I will try a new version or IE 6.0 again when there is an update SR1 Version and see what happens.

Best of luck.

[Prophet]

...also, might want to make sure that the, "OPEN LINKS IN A NEW WINDOW" option is checked off in your advanced options under TOOLS.

[Cryinbrian]

I'm thinking you've misunderstood me

OK, let me try again...maybe I wasn't too clear. When clicking a link in an already existing open IE6 browser window another IE6 browser starts to open. What happens next is the new browser window doesn't connect to the clicked link!! It just sits there. A good example: When going to the coffeebreak games website, after clicking the game link, a window should open up and download the shockwave game. Instead, just the frame of the window shows up and there is no connection or any internet activity. The button for the new window shows up at the bottom of the screen on the quicklaunch bar, but the little icon doesn't look right(the "e" looks pale blue insted of what it should look like). There is no connection. I haven't changed my browser settings, and this just started happening. I'm thinking that there is a corrupt file somewhere associated with IE. I remember installing a screensaver before all this happened. There are no viruses. I did an IE repair - same thing happens. I can't find where to uninstall IE6 completely so I can reinstall it. I'll try anything short of reformatting. Everything else works fine, and if I open a new browser window and paste links there I get to the page. IE just doesn't want to utilize the links anymore.
MY QUESTION?: Has anyone experienced this and what did you do to fix it?
Thanks a bunch for the help so far, guys...seriously.

I attached a .gif for you to see for yourself what I'm seeing.

[Cryinbrian]

HERE'S THAT .GIF I PROMISED

[Prophet]

Any chance that the site you are trying to link to is JAVA or FLASH based?

If so, maybe you need to update your Virtual Machine files or Macromedia FLASH files in order to access the site, FULLY!

[Cryinbrian]

Prophet,

It doesn't matter what I'm doing when I click a link. If the link is to another website, webpage, picture file or whatever, it just doesn't make any difference. If the webmaster set the link to open in the same window the link works fine. If it's set up to link in a new browser window, nothing happens. I'm going to try to use the windows update page to uninstall/reinstall some files. This is really wierd. I think I can safely say it was this screen saver I installed. I think it corrupted a .dll or something. Thanks for the help so far.

[Prophet]

.....it was this screen saver I installed. I think it corrupted a .dll or something.

Oh yeah! If a .dll was added by the screensaver that overwrote a newer .dll that was being used by your system, you will have a corruption.

Why not run SFC for kicks to see what has been recently altered?

[Cryinbrian]

I did that already...it found some .dll's apparently associated with IE6 that were merely altered because I reverted to IE5. Now, here's a good one for you...after using the repair tool and reverting to the previous version(supposedly IE5)and restarting I found that it didn't revert whatsoever. When I go to help...about....it shows IE ver. 6.00 etc. Also, there is no listing in the add/remove applet for IE! This is getting wierder. I uninstalled the screensavers I had installed before this all happened. I'm trying to retrace my steps. I think I'll give scanreg/restore a try...hopefully I can go back before I initially installed those crappy ss's. I guess I'll never grow out of shareware - or learn!
If you have any other ideas, feel free to drop a line. Thanks, man!
Here's what my applet looks like...kinda wierd, huh? If I can find a way to totally revert to IE4 and start over, I think my problems will be solved.
Here's the .gif:

[chris wolf]

windows 9x's taskbar usually doesn't show icons in more than 16 colours, but for some reason it looks like the icon of the new window is being shown in at least 256 colours (looks kinda like what you'd see in the far left of ie6's status bar or possibly the location bar - go ahead and compare). but that doesn't really explain anything.

it seems likely that some library is no longer registered or a vital file is missing, corrupt or has been replaced with an incorrect version. here are two suggestions that may or may not fix the problem - you'll probably have to restart to experience any change:

• hit start -> run, type in regsvr32 urlmon.dll and hit enter. you should receive a notification that the library was successfully registered.
• download and run mcrepair.exe. it's a patch that replaces commonly overwritten libraries with correct versions (oleaut32.dll among them, which has been known to cause issues similar to this as well as complaints about an "incorrect version of rpc stub" while installing/uninstalling applications). make sure to overwrite all files, even if it'll be replacing newer versions.

fyi, you may be able to run ie repair (or possibly the uninstaller) manually...

ie5.x:

• rundll32 setupwbv.dll,IE5Maintenance "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\Setup\SETUP.EXE" /g "C:\WINDOWS\IE Uninstall Log.Txt"

ie6:

• rundll32 setupwbv.dll,IE6Maintenance "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\Setup\SETUP.EXE" /g "C:\WINDOWS\IE Uninstall Log.Txt"

if all else fails you could try reinstalling ie6 - you may not have to uninstall it first.

[Cryinbrian]

CHRIS WOLF IS MY HERO

That little gizmo mcrepair.exe did the trick. Everything is back to normal. Thank God! I figured I had inadvertently corrupted some key files when I installed this screensaver. What had happened during installation is the installer was web-dependent. Before I could close down my browser and say "What the...?" the installer had already did it's number on me. Most ss's are simple and don't need installers. This was a demo, evidently, that wasn't labled as such. The website it comes from wants to promote other products and it even changed my homepage to it's site!! I was miffed at this and let them know that it's a stupid thing to do.

Anyhoo, all is now right with the world, so thanks to all who tried to help me.

To prove how happy I am, click this:

[chris wolf]

just another reason to use opera

anyway - glad the problem was easily fixed, and thanks for getting back to us.

[Biggie Fries]

because my problem seems to be very similar to Cryinbrian's. The only difference is that a window does open up, but it is white.

Here's my original post on this.

For the record, I have already tried this and everything suggested here.

This has been going on for months now and I'm ready to throw this computer into the trash. I lost track a long time ago of how many times I've repaired/reinstalled IE, reinstalled Windows, extracted files, etc. I even downloaded a new IE6 thinking that my original download had gotten corrupted or something.

I don't know if it's significant or not, but when I try to register shell32.dll I get this:

"Shell32.dll was loaded, but the DllRegisterServer entry point was not found. DllregisterServer may not be exported or a corrupt version of shell32.dll may be in memory. Consider using PView to detect & Remove it."

I have done an exhaustive search on this board and others and on Google and have gotten absolutely no help in what to do when this error message comes up. I have seen people say that all that is needed is to extract a new shell32.dll (didn't work), I have seen people say that can't be done in Win98se, I have seen people say that this is a usless procedure. The key term in that error message seems to be in memory, not on the hard drive so I fail to see how extracting a new file would help, but then I readily admit I don't have a clue what 'a version in memory" means. I also don't know if this is a red herring or if this is the seat of my problem. Evidently PView is a component of Visual Basic and is not even available with Win98, so I have no clue how that error message is supposed to do a Win98 user any good. I know how to view the processes on XP but I don't know of any way on Win98, and even on XP I don't see how you can remove anything, unless that's the same as killing it. But I think I'm digressing.

I have do all the maintenance on a regular basis (scandisk, defrag, empty tif, etc.), I have tif cache set to 1 MB, I use AV and spyware software on a regular basis. I blow out the dust from the innards on a regular basis, too.

And, as you saw from my previous post, I have Win98SE on a Compaq 7585, using IE6 and OE6. This only happens when I am in one of these programs - my son uses IRC with nary a problem.

I have Opera downloaded and ready to install to see if that will help. I had Opera before all these problems started but later uninstalled it as most of the sites I visit weren't compatible, including my own website. I do not want to install it except as a last resort because I have already used up 80% of my harddrive and someone told me along time ago it's always good to leave 20% free. (PS - is that advice valid?)

Thanks for any and all advice anyone can give. I am at my wit's end.