Wyn Hobson said:
I had the same problem as JB when I uninstalled IE7 after realising that it
had caused some major problems on my system (see below). According to an
independent electronics engineer of my acquaintance, Microsoft have probably
configured IE7 in such a way that even when it is uninstalled, it leaves
behind certain resources (registry entries, possibly?) which have the effect
of blocking the reinstallation of IE6, in the manner JB describes.
No. That is just misinformed thinking. XPsp2 is a pre-requisite for IE7
so uninstalling IE7 reverts the OS to the version of IE imbedded in the OS,
sometimes referred to as IE6sp2. You can not reinstall IE in that OS.
The only chance XP users had to install IE as a standalone application
before IE7 was with IE6sp1 while the OS was still base, e.g. when it still
had its imbedded version of IE6 in it.
XP no longer provides an IE Repair feature either. E.g., unless you installed
IE6sp1 standalone you don't have setupwbv.dll. Instead it was apparently
expected that sfc /scannow would be sufficient to replace that feature.
This idea ignores the fact that the main purpose of the old IE Repair was
to re-register key .dlls in controlled conditions. Further it has never been
clear to me that sfc /scannow actually does any re-registration of those
key modules anyway--perhaps if they need to be replaced but then we would
be in the absurd position of having to delete those modules in order to use
the wrong tool to effect a repair.
XPsp2 provided a command-line switch with iexplore.exe /rereg,
to compensate for the above deficiency and attempt to do the mass list
of re-registrations that IE Repair would do but unfortunately its implementation
was botched. As an alternative users can try this cmd file courtesy MVP Kai Schaetzl
http://iefaq.info/index.php?action=artikel&cat=24&id=31&artlang=en
Note: IE7 users should not try using this command file
nor try many of the old regsvr32 alternatives, particularly
not ones involving shdocvw.dll as some incompatibilities
with it have been observed by MVP Ramesh Srinivasan
http://www.winhelponline.com/blogs/...uve-opened-a-new-tabquot-message-go-away.html
It looks as if the most reliable way to repair IE7 then is to uninstall
and reinstall it. There is a Reset... button in Options, Advanced tab
but its effects are unclear to me so far. E.g. I suspect it could result
in loss of more user preferences than an uninstall/reinstall procedure
and it remains to be seen how much re-registration it actually does
anyway.
FYI
Robert Aldwinckle
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