Internet Explorer forces new window - Help!

kmccall

Registered
I need IE to access my corporate web based email, so please don't flame or tell me to use anything else, I'm a victim here.

I'm running IE 5.2.3 (updated from 5.2.2 to try to resolve this problem) and out of the blue IE has started displaying various dialogue boxes whenever I click on almost any hyperlink. I say almost, because it's very unpredictable. For instance, I may go to the Google home page and one time "News" may pop up with a dialogue box (see below), another time it may not.

The dialogue boxes relate to the hyperlink I clicked on, and state "Open Link in New Window", "Download Link to Disk" , Copy Link to Clipboard", "Add link to Favorties" etc. However, the boxes change and may be much more extensive at time.

I've gone crazy in the IE Preferances, fooling with everything from Java to the cache and I can't find any solution. This forces me to browse using the "Open Link to New Window" dialogue resulting in opening up a million new windows!

It would seem like this should be a configuration problem in IE. I can browse without this problem using Safari.

Any help appreciated!
 
That is... very strange, and not something I have seen in IE before.

What types of files are you trying to open when this happens?
 
What is happening when you get those boxes is that your mouse clicks are acting like right/control clicks in IE, activating the hyperlinks' pop-up download or contextual menus, which will vary accordingly. Can't say for sure what is causing your mouse to behave that way in IE.

This is a long shot, but by any chance are you using a programmable mouse or keyboard, one with both universal and application specific options? That might explain why you are seeing different behavior between IE and Safari (especially if you are using a MicroSoft device?) Because I remember having difficulty getting my own settings to override the default control click on my (Macally) trackball. The fix was to first change the button action to "none," click it, then enter the desired action and the setting would "stick."

The other possibility is that you have some kind of hot key handler like FruitMenu or such that is screwing around with the click&hold delay for accessing Contextual Menu, making it load too soon. Why that would effect IE and not Safari I can't say for sure; perhaps because IE is less responsive you find yourself sometimes clicking longer on the hyperlink, thus activating the pop-up menu. This would explain the inconsistency of the aberrance. Maybe clicking quicker on links in IE would help.

The best solution may be to use Safari as your webmail browser with the Debug Menu enabled, so you can choose User Agent/MacMSIE. That way Safari should be recognized as IE at the site from which you navigate. (That it will then perform the way you need it to I cannot guarantee.) There is now a plethora of free utilities that enable Debug: SafarIcon, Safari Enhancer, Onyx...

Failing all else, you could always try Disk Utility/Repair Permissions... but you didn't hear it from me.


Hope this has been some help, and welcome to our little party.
 
Sounds like a "right click" problem to me too. If you are on a pc you just have to go to your mouse preferences and set up your left mouse button as the one click and your right mouse button as your "control-click".
 
Keen insights by Andychrist. I did do something a while back with the mouse settings (there's only a couple of them, I didn't do anything abnormal) and I do have Fruitmenu installed. After I upgraded to IE 5.2.3 I didn't reboot and the problem remained.

I rebooted - problem gone!

Thanks all!
 
This happens to me all the time and its so annoying. From what I can see, it is a preference corruption dealing with memory for the mouse. I use a logitech 3 button mouse. The only way that I can fix it is to reboot. You can also try trashing the prefences for the 3rd party mouse and then reboot. However, IE is the only program this happens to me on which leads me to believe that its more to do with IE than the mouse itself. Its nice that IE has been discontinued for the mac so we just might have to go to something else. Personally I dont like Safari 1.0, havent tried 1.2 cause I am still running Jaguar. Another good one is Camino, still in Beta but is really fast and very similar to IE except its a Mozilla product like Netscape.
 
Might be 'nice' and all that IE has been discontinued, but as the initial poster said: He's _forced_ to using IE as no other browser supports the site (corporate) he must be using.

As IE 5.2.3 is not exactly the Carbon API poster child of applications, it will be one that will, overtime, become incompatible with Mac OS X, I guess. I don't see MS MBU updating it for much longer. However, I do hope that while Apple's WebKit gets better and better and more and more sites become standards-compliant, that we just won't need IE any longer.

Has already happened for me. :)
 
fryke said:
Might be 'nice' and all that IE has been discontinued, but as the initial poster said: He's _forced_ to using IE as no other browser supports the site (corporate) he must be using.
Yeah, I was being sarcastic with saying "nice", I still use IE just out of habit and did actually like it. I kind of wish they didn't do away with it.
 
It's a bit of consolation that I'm not alone with the problem.

What is very interesting is that I have the standard one-button mouse that came with the G5.

cory1848 said:
This happens to me all the time and its so annoying. From what I can see, it is a preference corruption dealing with memory for the mouse. I use a logitech 3 button mouse. The only way that I can fix it is to reboot. You can also try trashing the prefences for the 3rd party mouse and then reboot. However, IE is the only program this happens to me on which leads me to believe that its more to do with IE than the mouse itself. Its nice that IE has been discontinued for the mac so we just might have to go to something else. Personally I dont like Safari 1.0, havent tried 1.2 cause I am still running Jaguar. Another good one is Camino, still in Beta but is really fast and very similar to IE except its a Mozilla product like Netscape.
 
kmccall said:
It's a bit of consolation that I'm not alone with the problem.

What is very interesting is that I have the standard one-button mouse that came with the G5.

Interesting....That would tell me that is has to do with IE alone. Probably a preference file with IE...

Not to sure....
 
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