IE opens then immediately closes!

[DaveJ]

When I start IE it opens for a fraction of a second, then immediately closes!

I've read a lot of other websites regarding this problem I'm having, and looked at many possibilities. A pop-up blocker gone awry, maybe? So I did everything imaginable. I reset advanced settings, cleared all cached files, made sure AV was turned off, uninstalled every program I can find to uninstall. I used CCleaner to look at startup programs and got rid of anything that looked unnecessary.

Still, nothing works. Interestingly, I uninstalled IE7 last night, and that helped temporarily. IE6 started working fine. So then I installed IE8 and it worked fine. But this morning it was back to doing the same thing.

Oh well, I don't expect anyone to know of a solution, unless by any chance the exact same thing has happened to someone else here?? I'm sure it's something unique to my OS.

In the meantime I'll be using Firefox.

[CK_John]

1. I've seen a problem like yours that was caused by the connections settings in

Outlook Express to disconnect when closed that would drop the line(dialup) but also closed IE. Check connection options.

[DaveJ]

3. I've never used OE on this PC

Since I never use OE, I don't know where I'd find the Outlook Express options. Sounds plausible though -- I've had my connection drop occasionally too.

[trotsky]

2. Couple of MS KB articles

Not sure which might apply to you, if either...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/915726
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/932540

Are you using any IE toolbars, like the ones from Google or Yahoo?

[DaveJ]

4. Not intentionally -- I'm not into using toolbars

I did have Yahoo toolbar installed unintentionally at some point. So I uninstalled it. But that didn't help.

I will look into those KB articles tommorrow.

At the moment it's no big deal -- it's the PC I'm using as my Tivo server and all else is okay. When I find the solution I'll post back.

[DaveJ]

6. Well Microsoft's KB articles didn't help either...

They look so smart, but as usual with these KB articles, failed to work.

None of the things it said to look for were there -- not the registry key, not the component to unregister, or the PSAPI.dll file.

I'd like to get on my soap box about these high paid corporate computer engineers who are really good at sounding smart... if only I'd pursued a career in 'sounding smart' I guess I'd have a better job now.

Anyway, I really appreciate your help. Like I said, this computer has always caused problems. I probably should rebuild the OS. No big deal. Thanks again.

[JPettus]

5. Add-ons

I once had an add-on in the IE Browser that caused that problem. I don't remember how I got it to stay open long enough to figure it out, such as booting to safe mode. Once you get the system to stay up long enough, try disabling all the add-ons and turning them back on one at a time to figure out the one that is corrupted.

[DaveJ]

7. I ran IE with no addons. Same result.

Under Start Menu > Programs > Accessories > System Tools there is an option to run IE with no addons. Same thing. I think I'll go back to IE6 and see how long that works for now.

[jayfish]

8. Set Yor Homepage To Something Simple...

like google.com or yahoo.com and see if the problem persists.

Jay

[DaveJ]

9. I think it's the hard drive

I'll explain it more in my next post. Thanks for the suggestion though.