Can't activate links in email or web sites.

[jjigsawbill]

I hope someone out there knows what is wrong here. A few days ago I suddenly couldn't use links in my emails or websites. When I click on them a new window opens with the address in the box up top, and down by start I get a IE box. The screen stays blank with the little hour glass and nothing happens. I let it stay there for almost an hour, nothing. In addition I tried to download spybot at download.com, and a little window opened and stayed blank, then my screen showed a page rom them saying thanks for downloading the spybot. But no spybot on my machine. I have lowered by firewall and disabled all popup blackers, to no avail. Please help, I ain't too sharp with these things.

[The Goatboy]

Assuming you have no AV program installed, try going to housecall . trendmicro . com (remove spaces in the URL since I can't post websites yet). It is a free online AV scanning utility that will check your drive. A 2nd option would be go to AVG's website and download the free AV program from them, install it and run a full scan. If you can't access any websites then try resetting IE to defaults for ALL settings and try again. Continue to try and download AdAware or Spybot S&D or both, install them and again run a full scan. If your IE is so screwed up that you can't get any of these programs then try to download them from somewhere else and drop them on a USB key to install them on your PC.

If after all that you have not found any viruses or spyware/adware and your problem continues then repost back here and we'll help you try to figure out what is going on. Good luck.

[jjigsawbill]

I really appreciate your reply, meanwhile a neighbor down the stree came by and gave me the following which solved my problem: Try registering the referenced dll files under the Resolution section at the link below.

Support.microsoft.com/kb/281679/EN-US/ I eventually had to remove and reinstall IE, but possibly some of you folks will understand what they say at this site. Hope this will help others.

[rurbaniak]

Also, don't rely on IE as your only browser. I'm sure most of us here use it sparingly. Firefox, or die!!

[thecoldone06]

+1 for firefox. The extensions put you customization heaven.

[Blues]

I hate Firefox more then anything except maybe IE7, which I haven't really used/test driven, Mozzilla is ok still don't care much for it and Opera seems my preference for an alternative but I still use IE6 for everything.