IE Prefs problem

[friday04]

Internet Explorer won't let me make any new changes to my preferences. I put up an orange background on my desktop so I switched my browser color to tangerine. Then I changed my desktop and changed the color of my browser to indigo. But after I quit it and restart, the color is tangerine again. I also organized my bookmarks but when I restart, they are back to the old way. I tried to trash all of my IE prefs but when I started IE again, all of the prefs returned right along with the tangerine browser and old bookmarks. What's going on?

[genghiscohen]

I have not done this myself, so I can't vouch for its effectiveness, but...
I read in another posting that someone with similar IE preference problems was able to fix them by deleting the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.internetconfig.plist file. The downside to this approach is that you will need to re-enter all the settings in your Internet preference pane.

[friday04]

OK, you got me on the right track with that. But simply throwing away the com.apple.internetconfig.plist file didn't work. I would throw it away, restart, and when I'd open IE all of the old info would be back. I opened the internet config file using BBEdit and noticed some IE prefs in there. As well as an old email address I wasn't using anymore. So I'd trash the file, change my internet settings in my System Preferences go check the file and all of the old information was there again. It was like I had never deleted the file (is it cached somewhere?).

But finally, I was able to get new settings in the file by leaving IE open and trashing the com.apple.internetconfig.plist file. After throwing it away I went into my IE prefs and set everything including my email address and smtp server. I closed IE, opened it, and the file appeared again in the Library. Only this time all of the settings were correct.

That was a big pain in the arse to figure out. This OS isn't for the "everyday" user just yet. Thanks for your help, I would never have looked there to fix the problem.