Forward and back on mouse or screen

[Bob H]

My XP home computer rebooted out of the clear blue, for
no real reason, which happens once in a while. I have
learned to live with that problem but the last time it
happened something changed.
Now, when I use the back or forward buttons (when I am on
line) on my mouse or on the screen it goes forward or
back but always refreshes the page. Previously I could go
back to the exact page I had just been looking at but now
it refreshes every time. Example ... I was sending a
message to a company from their site using their "contact
us" link. If I go back to get some additional info and
then forward to continue my message .... it refreshes and
I wind up with a blank message screen ... everything I
already typed is gone. The same thing happens on any
site ... I can not go back without the page refreshing.
Can anyone give me a suggestion as to how I can change
this. Thanks

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Bob.

Sounds like you have problems with both apples and oranges and are trying to
link symptoms that are not really related. Let's try to sort them out.

My XP home computer rebooted out of the clear blue, for
no real reason, which happens once in a while. I have
learned to live with that problem but the last time it
happened something changed.

When WinXP is first installed, it has instructions for what to do on "System
failure". The instruction is to "Automatically restart". As we all learn
early, many computer problems are fixed by simply rebooting, so this often
clears whatever bellyache was bothering our machine. However, when a reboot
does not do the job, we are left with no clues about what to do next. If
you go to Start | Control Panel | System | Advanced | Startup and Recovery
Settings, you will see the System failure section and the check in the
Automatically restart box. Remove that check mark. Next time, instead of
rebooting, your computer will halt with a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) full
of cryptic codes. Post the first few lines of those codes - even if you
don't understand them - and somebody here probably can point you in the
right direction.

Now, when I use the back or forward buttons (when I am on
line) on my mouse or on the screen it goes forward or
back but always refreshes the page.

These previous pages are held in your "Internet cache", known as your
Temporary Internet Files, or TIF. You can manage your TIF from IE by
clicking Tools | Internet Options... and looking at the middle of that
screen. Click Settings... and you can change the size of your cache. If
yours is too small, you may not have enough room to hold many pages,
especially if the pages have a lot of graphics, which take lots of room.
You can also delete files from here, to clear your cache for new pages. At
the top of the Settings screen, you can tell IE how often to refresh stored
pages. Also, on the Advanced tab of Internet Options, you can scroll down
to Security and set it to Empty the TIF every time you exit IE. If you have
broadband, this is especially useful because IE can reload the page almost
as fast as it can retrieve it from the cache.

I was sending a
message to a company from their site using their "contact
us" link. If I go back to get some additional info and
then forward to continue my message .... it refreshes and
I wind up with a blank message screen ... everything I
already typed is gone.

This may be out of your control. Many companies, especially on their secure
sites (like where they ask for your credit card number or other confidential
information) set up roadblocks to safeguard your info. They want to make
sure that somebody can't just find your machine running and backspace to
that page of confidential stuff that you forgot to erase. Irritating
sometimes, but this is for your protection.

RC