Weird Internet Explorer problem

[ffutures]

My sister's family computer (XP Home SP3) has IE7 as its browser. Suddenly Flash won't work, no matter what we do. I've tried uninstalling Flash and reinstalling it, tried messing around with the settings, nothing seems to help. Flash is there all right - I tried it with Opera and its's fine - but for some reason IE7 doesn't want to know.

Any suggestions? Preferably not involving Linux, Firefox, Macs, etc....?

Comments

[kyte.livejournal.com]

Extremely trivial suggestion - reinstall IE?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Not sure how to do that without doing a complete Windows install - they have a recovery disk, not a full Windows disk - and somehow backing up hundreds of bookmarks. Worth considering though.

[kyte.livejournal.com]

This download ought to work for XP SP3:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9AE91EBE-3385-447C-8A30-081805B2F90B&displaylang=en

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Hopefully not necessary, but we shall see.

[very-true-thing.livejournal.com]

What do you see if you look in Tools > Manage Addons > Addons that have been used by Internet Explorer? There should be an entry for Shockwave Flash Object.

Flash for IE is an Active X control and so is actually a different program to Flash for Opera (and all non-IE browsers). The installer will install both if it detects both browsers - did the installer list IE in any dialogues when you tried to reinstall?

Also check the settings of any security software for anything that may be stop Active X - this would stop Flash working in IE but not in Opera.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

No, there was nothing about IE in the Flash install dialogue. I'll have a look at the rest of it ASAP, I gave blood tonight and I'm too tired.

[very-true-thing.livejournal.com]

It is possible that I'm remembering an older version of the installer, and if I am, I apologise. But I do recall one step which listed all the browsers that it has detected and asked which you wanted to install Flash for (defaulting to all of them).

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

I'd check the security settings in IE7. Try gearing them all the way down to Low and see if that helps.

I'd be extremely wary of uninstalling IE7. Doing that may screw you into a position where you need IE7 on a CD to reinstall it.

You should also try creating a new user account on the machine, logging in with that, and seeing if it works. If it does, then the problem is with the user's settings, which you can fiddle with from the control panels.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It's all users so the last isn't it - I'll try the others.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

Also, if you go into Control Panels and use the "Add/Remove System Components" option (or something like that). You can then do a repair install on IE and see if that fixes it: it won't do any harm.

If you need more detail let me know and I can give you a step-by-step.