Internet Explorer works on 3 out of 4 users on computer

[Jan Alter]

An interesting event happened to me at work today. One of the teachers who
shares a computer running XP Home on a Dell Dimension desktop said she
couldn't run Internet Explorer after she logs into her personality. Sure
enough anytime I clicked on an IE short cut the hour glass would appear for
a few seconds and then change back to an arrow. IE never started. I tried
going to Explore-the file manager, and attempting to start IE directly from
the IE folder in Program Files and got the same response as the short cut.
So I logged out and relogged in as one of the other teachers. Clicking on
the IE shortcut got me right onto the Internet. 'That was cute', I thought.
So I downloaded Firefox and dropped it onto the first teacher's desktop,
logged out and logged back into the first teacher who couldn't get IE
started. I Installed Firefox and it worked straight away, getting me onto
the Internet.
At this point the teacher is happy to have Firefox running. I've
explained that I have no idea why IE won't start and run. I've said that the
probable and easy fix is for me to eliminate her account and set it up
again if she wants to use IE as her browser. When Firefox did set up it
asked if it wanted to have her bookmarks imported from IE. I had said yes
and all her book marks were there when she opened Firefox. Anyone out there
have any ideas why IE won't open on her account but will open on the others?

Thanks

 

[Guest]

It's most likely a setting in IE that's gone astray. Here's a link on
repairing IE that may help:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=318378

Otherwise, here's a link on repairing corrupted profiles that may be of
interest: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=811151

- John

 

[Alan]

An interesting event happened to me at work today. One of the teachers who
shares a computer running XP Home on a Dell Dimension desktop said she
couldn't run Internet Explorer after she logs into her personality. Sure
enough anytime I clicked on an IE short cut the hour glass would appear
for a few seconds and then change back to an arrow. IE never started. I
tried going to Explore-the file manager, and attempting to start IE
directly from the IE folder in Program Files and got the same response as
the short cut. So I logged out and relogged in as one of the other
teachers. Clicking on the IE shortcut got me right onto the Internet.
'That was cute', I thought. So I downloaded Firefox and dropped it onto
the first teacher's desktop, logged out and logged back into the first
teacher who couldn't get IE started. I Installed Firefox and it worked
straight away, getting me onto the Internet.
At this point the teacher is happy to have Firefox running. I've
explained that I have no idea why IE won't start and run. I've said that
the probable and easy fix is for me to eliminate her account and set it
up again if she wants to use IE as her browser. When Firefox did set up it
asked if it wanted to have her bookmarks imported from IE. I had said yes
and all her book marks were there when she opened Firefox. Anyone out
there have any ideas why IE won't open on her account but will open on the
others?

Thanks
--
Jan Alter
(e-mail address removed)
or
(e-mail address removed)12.pa.us

I had a similar issue that was supposedly down to one of the 'updates'.
Other people had suffered in the same way and had uninstalled the update,
that didn't sort mine out but it did start working again a few weeks later
after the next updates. Try seeing if there are any updates to apply. btw
this is the XP newsgroup, not the IE6 one.

 

[PA Bear]

Most likely, the User Profile is infected with hijackware. (No,
reinstalling IE won't help: Hijackware infects Windows, not the browser.)

Checking for/Help with Hijackware
http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm
http://aumha.org/a/quickfix.htm
http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=5878
http://wiki.castlecops.com/Malware_Removal_and_Prevention:_Introduction
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/data/prevention.htm
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/tshoot.html
http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/Malware_Defence.htm
http://defendingyourmachine.blogspot.com/
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware

When all else fails, HijackThis v1.99.1
(http://aumha.net/downloads/hijackthis.zip) is the preferred tool to use.
It will help you to both identify and remove any hijackware/spyware. **Post
your log to http://forums.spybot.info/forumdisplay.php?f=22,
http://castlecops.com/forum67.html,
http://forums.subratam.org/index.php?showforum=7,
http://aumha.net/viewforum.php?f=30, or other appropriate forums for expert
analysis, not here.**

 

[HeyBub]

An interesting event happened to me at work today. One of the
teachers who shares a computer running XP Home on a Dell Dimension desktop
said she couldn't run Internet Explorer after she logs into
her personality. Sure enough anytime I clicked on an IE short cut the
hour glass would appear for a few seconds and then change back to an
arrow. IE never started. I tried going to Explore-the file manager,
and attempting to start IE directly from the IE folder in Program
Files and got the same response as the short cut. So I logged out and
relogged in as one of the other teachers. Clicking on the IE shortcut
got me right onto the Internet. 'That was cute', I thought. So I
downloaded Firefox and dropped it onto the first teacher's desktop,
logged out and logged back into the first teacher who couldn't get IE
started. I Installed Firefox and it worked straight away, getting me
onto the Internet. At this point the teacher is happy to have
Firefox running. I've explained that I have no idea why IE won't start and
run. I've said
that the probable and easy fix is for me to eliminate her account
and set it up again if she wants to use IE as her browser. When
Firefox did set up it asked if it wanted to have her bookmarks
imported from IE. I had said yes and all her book marks were there
when she opened Firefox. Anyone out there have any ideas why IE won't
open on her account but will open on the others?
Thanks

So, instead of fixing the problem, you downloaded and installed foreign
software on a shared computer in a work environment.

Nice.

This sort of thing could very well be the cause of the original problem.