Cannot figure out What is Blocking Popups

[Tribble]

Hello All,

I have a Windows XP SP2 machine. It is blocking popups in IE, and I
cannot figure out what is blocking them.
It is not giving any sort of indicator that something has been blocked,
except that the entire window kind of blips - stops being the active
window - for about half a second.

I have disabled SP2 Firewall as well as disabled the built in pop-up
blocker in IE. I have set security to minimum. It does not have any 3rd
party firewall or spyware software installed. It has Norton AntiVirus,
but just the basic type. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, as my
user needs popups for a specific reason.

Thanks!
Tribble

 

[Galen]

In Tribble <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Hello All,

I have a Windows XP SP2 machine. It is blocking popups in IE, and I
cannot figure out what is blocking them.
It is not giving any sort of indicator that something has been
blocked, except that the entire window kind of blips - stops being
the active window - for about half a second.

I have disabled SP2 Firewall as well as disabled the built in pop-up
blocker in IE. I have set security to minimum. It does not have any
3rd party firewall or spyware software installed. It has Norton
AntiVirus, but just the basic type. Any ideas would be greatly
appreciated, as my user needs popups for a specific reason.

Thanks!
Tribble

Check toolbars - Yahoo! or Google are famous for this.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind,
which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply
there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations." -
Sherlock Holmes

 

[Tribble]

There is No third party software of that nature - that includes Google
Toolbar and Yahoo Toolbar. Any more ideas?
Thanks!

 

[Galen]

In Tribble <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

There is No third party software of that nature - that includes Google
Toolbar and Yahoo Toolbar. Any more ideas?
Thanks!

No, not really... Not without more information. Can you give me a site where
I should see a popup that you're missing? What happens if you click a link,
say open a search engine, type in a search, find a link, and then hold the
shift key when you click the link? Does it open that link in a new window?

Alternatively, when you're at a site expecting a popup... Does it matter if
you press and hold CTRL?

Finally, if you open IE, click on tools, options, and the advanced tab...
Scroll until you see the bit about reusing windows to launch shortcuts, this
is a long-shot but UN-tick that if it's selected.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind,
which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply
there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations." -
Sherlock Holmes

 

[Tribble]

Re-using windows was ticked, but is now Un-Ticked...It did not clear up
the issue. Restarted just to make sure too. Pressing ctrl does not help
either.

Going to Google, searching, and pressing shift while clicking on a link
produces the EXACT same symptom as what I am encountering. The window
kind of blips and nothing else seems to happen.

Here is one example of a site where he encounters difficulty...
http://www.aircanada.com/en/home.html

When the page loads, there are some fields. One of which is "Leaving
From." When you click on the little arrow to the right of the field, a
window pops up offering common cities. The expected resulting window
does not pop up for my user.

I have also noticed that this happens on all users of this machine, not
just the one.

Thanks in advance and for the ideas to try!

 

[Galen]

In Tribble <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Re-using windows was ticked, but is now Un-Ticked...It did not clear
up the issue. Restarted just to make sure too. Pressing ctrl does not
help either.

Going to Google, searching, and pressing shift while clicking on a
link produces the EXACT same symptom as what I am encountering. The
window kind of blips and nothing else seems to happen.

Here is one example of a site where he encounters difficulty...
http://www.aircanada.com/en/home.html

When the page loads, there are some fields. One of which is "Leaving
From." When you click on the little arrow to the right of the field, a
window pops up offering common cities. The expected resulting window
does not pop up for my user.

I have also noticed that this happens on all users of this machine,
not just the one.

Thanks in advance and for the ideas to try!

Took me a bit but I found a link with a popup. Enable javascript in your IE
settings. That *should* do the trick.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind,
which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply
there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations." -
Sherlock Holmes

 

[Tribble]

Javascript is enabled. I'm sorry!

 

[Galen]

In Tribble <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Javascript is enabled. I'm sorry!

Curiouser and curiouser...

Take a peek for BHOs (browser helper objects) that might not be listed...
Yes, I'm running out of ideas here. <g> Try removing them and seeing if they
right this situation. If you DO figure out which one it was then please let
me know.

BHODemon 2.0:
http://www.definitivesolutions.com/bhodemon.htm

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind,
which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply
there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations." -
Sherlock Holmes

 

[Tribble]

Unfortunately we have a very strict policy about installing unknown
software, so I am unable to install the BHODemon. I did go through and
remove all the BHO's that were listed in IE, that did not solve this. I
suppose it could be one that is not listed. Thanks for all the help
though!!!

 

[Galen]

In Tribble had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Unfortunately we have a very strict policy about installing unknown
software, so I am unable to install the BHODemon. I did go through and
remove all the BHO's that were listed in IE, that did not solve this.
I suppose it could be one that is not listed. Thanks for all the help
though!!!

LOL Umm... Have you checked with the IT department to see if they have
something that's blocking popups? If they're using GPO then with SP2 they
can force blocking popups there.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind,
which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply
there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations." -
Sherlock Holmes

 

[Tribble]

I am the manager of the IT department..the no outside software policy
is my policy...and we don't have anything blocking popups....

 

[Galen]

In Tribble had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

I am the manager of the IT department..the no outside software policy
is my policy...and we don't have anything blocking popups....

LOL! Well, first you could have saved a few posts and told me this earlier
on. <g> AD or GPO handled via each machine or maybe roaming profile? In
group policy under user settings and windows and IE... Is it set, maybe, to
force the popup blocking to be on? This is about the last idea I can think
of? I've checked with a couple other people and we've looked at this and,
well, this is all I'm able to come up with from here on out. All non-admin
users are being restricted from opening popups? The only logical reasons for
this would be firewall or other security software, BHO that's configured to
block pupups - even the MSN Search and Toolbar will block popups by default,
or a group policy that's in effect that's blocking them. I, we really as I
actually thought I might be missing something, can't think of anything else?
The site you gave loaded the popup with scripting and it worked okay here on
a few accounts - I've gone ahead and tested some more. Logic says it has to
be something in the above BUT that's only with the information you've given.
Is there anything else you can think of to add? If not that's all I can find
that should be causing this?

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind,
which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply
there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations." -
Sherlock Holmes

 

[Tribble]

It's the wxact same image and the same logon permissions (Administrator
actually) and the same AD profile as everyone else in his department.
Nobody else has issues.

I'm just going to ghost it! lol

 

[Galen]

In Tribble had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

It's the wxact same image and the same logon permissions
(Administrator actually) and the same AD profile as everyone else in
his department. Nobody else has issues.

I'm just going to ghost it! lol

To be honest you might as well. That's so odd that I don't even think a
repair installation of IE would do the trick... I've seen, I've been in the
groups for ages, a lot of odd errors but this is one that's (assuming I have
all the information) beyond odd and just plain freaky. Seeing as you're
going to ghost it and the issue will likely be resolved it may be in your
best interest to get approval (for future use) for BHODemon to be run on
troublesome PCs. (You'll find that in an earlier message if you'd like to
play with it before hand.) It's a handy dandy application and the vendor's
pretty trusted in these here parts of the woods. At this point I'm not even
sure it would have fixed it but it's still a handy chunk of software to keep
around.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind,
which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply
there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations." -
Sherlock Holmes