Registrations/Updates open blank MSIEs w/o URLs

[jeffemmert]

Help us, Obiewan. You're our only hope.

Somewhere along the line, I must have set a security
preference a bit too restrictively in either XPSP2 or
MSIE6.

Here's the puzzle: I have all these great music, photo
editing and other programs that try to access pages
using MSIE6 for things like product registration,
music downloads, photo sharing, etc. The problem
arises whenever I click one of these would-be
conveniences. Whenever a different program opens a
browser window (MSIE6 as default), the new window
lacks URL information. If a browser window is already
open, it switches to that window, yet nothing new
happens.

It's killing my ability to buy music from sellers like
WalMart (and others), using links provided in Windows
Media Player 10, or develop pictures using ArcSoft or
similar programs. So far, their techs can only think
of disabling firewalls.

I can replicate this experiment with Norton Internet
Security 2004 on or off, Windows Firewall on or off,
ZoneAlarm 5 (freebie) on or off, or any combination of
the above, so I'm thinking it isn't the firewalls.

It also happened before and after the XPSP2 upgrade.

Do you know which Windows or Internet Explorer
preference I could check or uncheck to bring things
back to normal?

[hudsonsmith]

Welcome to windrivers jeff. To restore the ie defaults, go to tools\internet options. Go to the security tab and click default level. Then go to the advanced tab and click restore defaults. Same for the privacy tab.

[jeffemmert]

Welcome to windrivers jeff. To restore the ie defaults, go to tools\internet options. Go to the security tab and click default level. Then go to the advanced tab and click restore defaults. Same for the privacy tab.

Done and done. I've also gone through the re-registration steps of several .dll files per Microsoft:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...281679&sd=tech

No luck yet.

Will try making Mozilla or Firefox the default browser next.