IE7 failure after uninstalling IE8 (final version)

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

I'd say the bulk of your problems (prior to the Repair Install) were due to
the fact that you neglected to disable all components of NIS 2009 (e.g.,
NAV; Norton firewall; any/all Norton Add-ons) and then enable the Windows
Firewall before installing and/or uninstalling IE8.

There's a big difference between an application (e.g., *your version* of NIS
2009) being compatible or working OK in IE8 and the application provider
(e.g., Norton/Symantec) supporting their application in IE8. It doesn't
matter if you didn't notice any problems running an IE8 Beta with *your
version* of NIS 2009 installed, especially since quite a number of changes
were made between the time IE8 RC1 and IE8 Final were released.

You should not have affected a Repair Install of WinXP without having first
(1) uninstalling SP3 and then (2) uninstalling IE7. The fact that you did
not do so is the primary reason IE6 isn't working properly and you're seeing
so many abnormalities.

More Norton/Symantec-related stuff (possibly OT):

1. AFAIK, the only Norton application fully supported in IE8 right now is
Norton 360 version 3.0 (not v2.5 or earlier).

2. If you upgraded to NIS 2009 from an earlier Norton application & version,
(e.g., NIS 2008) or if a Norton free-trial was installed on the machine when
you purchased it way back when, it would have been best to (1) uninstall the
current Norton application (as well as LiveUpdate & any Norton Add-ons) via
Add/Remove Programs and then (2) run the Norton Removal tool before (3)
installing NIS 2009. I would give the same advice if you were upgrading
your current NIS 2009 version to a newer NIS 2009 version or any future
Norton application and version.

3. If a McAfee free-trial came preinstalled on the machine when you
purchased it, it, too, should have been uninstalled and then the McAfee
removal tool should have been run prior to installing any other anti-virus
or security suite application.

Robear, first of all I would like to thank you for all your answers. I do
appreciate your suggestions and therefore it is out of the question the
ideea that you are "rubbing my nose".
I fully understand your final suggestion but , as I previously mentioned ,
I
believe there is no guarantee for me that after doing a clean install of
Windows XP I will not face the same problem after installing and
uninstalling the IE8. Therefore, for the time being , I will try to find
the cause that lead to this problem and a viable solution.

To recap and to "quote" you, the problem was as fallows:

1. I "installed IE7 in WinXP SP2".

2. I "installed WinXP SP3".

3. I "installed and then uninstall IE8 Final" [you were right , in my
first
post
here I errantly wrote, "After I uninstalled IE7..."] and ended up with "an
IE7 that was totally non-functional (hang-up / freezing)."

The recap should stop HERE and the deriving questions are :
a) WHY THE IE8 UNINSTALLATION DID NOT LEAD TO A NORMAL REVERT TO IE7 ?
b) WHY THE IE8 UNINSTALLATION HAS LED TO A TOTALLY NON-FUNCTIONAL IE7 ?

Another remark: you mentioned the possible incompatibility of IE8 with
Norton Internet Security 2009. Therefore , other questions derived from
this
statement are:

c) WHY IE8 IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH NIS 2009 CONSIDERING THE FACT THE NIS
2009
WAS COMPATIBLE WITH IE7
d) WHY IE8 IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH NIS 2009 CONSIDERING THE FACT THE LONG
PERIOD OF IE8 TESTING (the prerelease IE8 version, the final candidate IE8
version) AS WELL AS THE FACT THAT NIS 2009 WAS ACTUALLY RELEASED IN 2008 ?

Other weird issues that I noticed are as follows:

i) When I first uninstalled IE8 and reverted to that non-functional IE7 I
noticed that on the top blue bar of the microsoft web page (my home page)
contained only the IE icon (the blue "e" letter ) BUT NO TEXT (like
Windows
Internet Explorer)


ii) When running IE6 (as I am currently doing ) the IE icon on the desktop
is not functional: when I click on it NOTHING HAPPENS
iii) When running IE6 (as I am currently doing) , when I activate the
“Links†button on the Internet Explorer bar I see the buttons “Free
Hotmailâ€
, “Suggested sites†and Web Slice gallery†and I know that the last two
of
them actually belong to IE8 ( !? )

iv) After reinstalling IE7 (which , as I already mentioned, is not
functional ) the “Internet options†icon in the “Control panel†appears
INCOMPLETE, i.e. without the text “Internet options†underneath the
respective icon (due to this fact it is listed first on the Control panel)
.
After uninstalling IE7 and reverting to IE6 the respective “Internet
options†icon appears normally (i.e. WITH THE TEXT “Internet optionsâ€
underneath the respective icon) and it is listed normally , in
alphabetical
order (i.e. between the icons “Intel (R) GMA Driver for mobile†and
“Javaâ€)

v) When I examined the “Windows components Wizard†of the “Add/Remove
windows components†I noticed that although the box of the “Internet
Explorer†component is ticked its size is 0.0 MB (!?)

Anyway, as I already mentioned at the beginning of this message, for the
time being I will continue to find a solution to this problem and if this
will not happen I will either reinstall IE8 (which is working fine - I
already tested once this) or will do a clean install of windows XP.

One last question for you: when doing a repair install of Windows XP, the
registry does remain unaffected / unchanged (remains the same as before
the
respective install repair)?? In my case it was not affected by the repair
install.

Thanks again for your past and future answers and feed-back !

Florin

George, I am not trying to "rub your nose in it" here. I'm simply
documenting why you ended up in your current predicament ("THE CAUSE of
this problem"). In chronological order:

1. You installed IE7 in WinXP SP2.

2. You installed WinXP SP3.

3. You installed and then uninstall IE8 Final [note than in your first
post
here you errantly said, "After I uninstalled IE7..."] and ended up with
"an
IE7 that was totally non-functional (hang-up / freezing)."

4a. You attempted to uninstall/reinstall IE7 (cf.
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/05/05/ie-and-xpsp3.aspx).

4b. You attempted to uninstall/reinstall SP3.

5. You had not disabled (a) NIS 2009 or (b) Spybot's SDHelper and Tea
Timer
prior to any of the installs/uninstalls above (cf.
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/10/11/IE7-Installation-and-Anti_2D00_Malware-Applications.aspx).

6a. You uninstalled NIS 2009 but did not run the Norton Removal Tool &
reboot after doing so (cf. http://windowssecrets.com/comp/080207#story1).

6b. You uninstalled Spybot but you did not disable Tea Timer nor undo
Spybot's Immunizations before doing so.

7. You affected a Repair Install of WinXP with IE7 (and SP3, apparently)
still installed (cf. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917964).

UNINSTALLING IE8 DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY REVERT TO A FUNCTIONAL IE7

Not in the environment in which you uninstalled (and originally
installed)
it, no. See #5 above.

As for "HOW IT CAN BE SOLVED," I can assure you that the only way you're
going to have a fully-functional, fully-updated WinXP again is by backing
up your personal data and then doing a format & clean install of Windows.

After the clean install, you'll have the equivalent of a "new computer"
so
take care of everything on the following page before otherwise connecting
the machine to the internet or a network and before using a USB key
and/or
a CD/DVD that isn't brand-new or hasn't been freshly formatted:

5 steps to help protect your new computer before you go online
http://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/advanced/xppc.mspx

Best of luck to you.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Client - since 2002

The problem was not caused by a "Repair Install without having first
uninstalled IE7".
As I explained in my initial post THE PROBLEM OCCURED AFTER I HAVE
UNINSTALLED IE8. When I did the IE8 uninstall this generated a reversion
to
an IE7 which was totally not-functional (freezing-up / hanging-up a few
seconds after it opened the home page of my browser - www.microsoft.com)
.
Anyway what I need to understand is THE CAUSE of this problem and HOW IT
CAN
BE SOLVED without having to do a clean reinstallation of windows xp or
using the backup of mirror imaging the hard drive. These last two
solutions
of last resort are not actually solving my problem represented by the
fact
that UNINSTALLING IE8 DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY REVERT TO A FUNCTIONAL IE7.
What if, after I am doing a clean reinstallation of windows xp or using
the
backup of the hard drive mirror imaging I will be facing the same
problem
when uninstalling the IE8 ??
Anyway I did a lot of research on the net and among other I found out
this
article on “IE and Windows XP Service Pack 3 â€
blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/05/05/ie-and-xpsp3.aspx . After reading
this
article I am wondering wheter IE8 has installed also a file that blocks
the
normal reverting to a functional IE7 after uninstalling IE8. I am
wondering
this due to the fact that when reinstalling IE8 this is working fine.

:
Repost:

I'd say KB917964 (see my previous reply) explains what caused the
problem
(i.e., doing a Repair Install without having first uninstalled IE7).

The only solution now is a clean install.

This is not new in Windows architecture: A Repair Install in WinME
requires
uninstalling IE6 before proceeding. Similarly, a Repair Install in
Win2K
requires (a) uninstalling any Service Packs that had been installed
after
IE6 has been installed and then (b) uninstalling IE6 before proceeding.

Of course you could install an alternate brower as your default and
continue on your merry way but Windows will never work properly without
a
fully-functional IE. And the only way for you to have a
fully-functional
IE now is to "wipe & reload."

Again, best of luck to you.

PS: Please don't kill the messenger. <wink>
--
~PA Bear


floringeorge2001 wrote:
Thanks, Dave, for the information. It's good to know about such
preventive
measures using the "hard drive imaging". However I think this is only
a
radical solution of last resort. What I really need is a solution,
maybe
directly from Microsoft , that identifies and explains the causes of
this
problem and provides also an easy solving of this problem.

:

in
message
What exactly means "imaging the hard drive"? What are the steps to
do
this?

You need a third-party program to do this. Many here, myself
included,
are partial to Acronis True Image. If you want something free,
DriveImage XML is very good (its major downside is that it cannot
make
incremental images like Acronis).

When you image your hard drive (you can make images of specific
partitions, too), what you are doing is creating a file which you may
store anywhere (e.g., on an external hard drive or even a DVD or
series
of DVDs) that is a snapshot of the entire drive. This image archive
can
later be restored by the same program that made it, recreating what
the
drive was like *in its entirey* at the moment the image was made. So,
say you image your hard drive on Monday and on Tuesday an
installation
or update goes terribly awry, resulting in disaster (or it could be
because of a virus or other malware or perhaps the drive itself
physically died). All you need to do is run your imaging/restoration
program and your hard drive returns to its Monday (working)
condition.
If you need to replace the hard drive, it doesn't matter. Again,
restore
the image and the new drive is back to how your old drive was on
Monday.

Some prefer cloning to imaging. Anna, one of the regulars here, is a
big
cloning advocate. She specifically likes the program Casper. When you
clone a drive, it's just what it sounds like. You first need another
hard drive. Then you make that other drive an exact replica of the
source drive. Since it's a perfect copy, you could swap drives and
boot
up and that's that. It's a personal preference. I wind up restoring
an
image (which does take some time -- about 37 minutes for me) maybe
twice
a year, tops. So I don't mind. For those who do extensive testing or
perhaps day trading, etc., cloning would make more sense. And if you
have the cloned drive inside the same PC (or if you use an external
eSATA drive), you don't even need to open the case and swap!

Otherwise I do, indeed, know NOW that "it is recommended to install
SP3
*before* upgrading the IE7 . But I strongly believe that on the IE8
page of
the Microsoft website a such recommendation as well as the
recommendations
presented by PA Bear SHOULD HAVE BEEN PRESENTED TO THE SIMPLE USERS.

I agree with you. Microsoft should encourage everyone (and make it
clear
and easy) to read about the best-practices method for installing IE7
and/or IE8 and/or SP3. Looking at this from a purely economic point
of
view, there is a less than a critical mass of customers having the
type
of experience you are reporting. Not to say it's a small number! But
still, less than a critical mass where profits would be affected
significantly.

And ANYWAY on the support pages in the Microsoft website should have
been
presented a solution for the problem I am currently facing !!!

It might be there for all I know. Then again, even if it is, it's
probably not easy to find. My heart goes out to you!

Do yourself a favor. Get an imaging program. I like Acronis, but if
your
budget is tight right now, DriveImage XML will do the job. After you
perform the clean install and install the updates, programs, data,
etc.,
image your hard drive. And continue to image it regularly. Always
make
an image before a major change (like IE7 or IE8 or SP3). Trust me,
you'll be happy you did!