IE7 has some strange elements 1

[Bocaire]

I finally decided to let MS do the upgrade install to IE7, on my primary high end computer.

Things went OK, and being an advanced user, I got most things "straightened out" shortly after the install.

There are however, a couple of items that I can't resolve, so I'd like some tips here. I'm running a 30" 2560x1600 monitor, and IE 6 didn't have these problems.

1. When IE7 is first opened, the "favorites" section on the left is quite narrow, and would not respond to dragging wider. There is an icon at the upper right in the favorites section that shows "pin the favorites center" (whatever that means). Clicking on it did widen the favorites section, and that icon was then gone. And when I hovered over the right side, the usual double headed arrow displayed, but dragging it would not make that section wider, but it could be dragged narrower.

How can I make it wider? Is this a Registry entry somewhere?

2. Originally, my "Links" toolbar was not displayed. so I went into the list of toolbars, and clicked on it, and it then displayed. But, if I create additional tabs, those web pages display, but the Links toolbar does not display. If I click back on the first/original tab, the Links are there. Is this a bug/feature? Why can I not have my Links toolbar visible from any tab other than the original first page?

And, if I close down the original tab, leaving only one other tab open, the LINKS toolbar does not come back. Even going to "HOME" does not restore it. And looking at the menu list of toolbars, the "Links" item is still checked.

The only way I"ve found to restore the LINKS ttoolbar is to close IE& down, and then reload it. Something is strange here.

3. I normally have my screen zoom settings set at about 125%. When I open GOOGLE News There is a scroll bar at the bottom, and the news items, which used to wrap, and nicely fill the open horizontal area of the window, no longer do so. This is a PITA. I can't locate a setting in Google to fix this - but it didn't happen before in IE6.

I just noticed that in this forum, the same problem is occurring. There is a horizontal scrollbar ar the bottom, as the actual window is much wider than the display area, when my view zoom is set at 125%. At 100% it all fits properly.

Any tips here?

Bocaire

 

[linney]

The widening of the Favorites seems to be by design with a limitation on its width. Clicking on that "Pin" arrow allows the adjustment in width to be made up to the maximum allowable width.

My "Links" appear in all pages opened by the TAB's, do you have the Toolbars Locked, I don't?

Forum Management is aware of the Scroll Bar issue but are battling to solve it. On some Tek-Tips pages I see it too, it seems mainly on pages that have a CodeBox displayed in any posting. You could use the "Contact Us" button at the top of this page to inform Forum Management of your observations.

As far as hacks and the like, these may lead somewhere.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:&q=ie7+reg+OR+REgistry+xp&btnG=Search

http://groups.google.com/groups/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=ie7+reg+hack&qt_s=Search

Troubleshooting Internet Explorer 7

http://msmvps.com/blogs/spywaresucks/archive/2006/10/18/182724.aspx

Have you been able to check if there are any updates for IE7?

 

[Bocaire]

Hi Linney,

Thanks for the reply.

I do not have the toolbars locked. There is no check next to that item in the VIEW>TOOLBARS menu listing.

There must be something somewhere that's causing this.

I find it hard to understand why/how MS can do such a "far from perfect" job for IE7. I'm seriously considering going to FireFox.

Bocaire

 

[linney]

You could try uninstalling IE7 and re-install, this time make sure all you security software is disabled and see if you have better luck.

 

[Bocaire]

Hi Linney,

I have considerable security software running. Disabling it would probably allow MS to set its security items as the defaults where there are "conflicts", and I feel quite strongly that I don't want that.

Re your earlier comment about "IE7 updates" just now there was an auto MS update installed for IE7, so I assume that my install has all the latest "updates".

For now I'll live with the various inconveniences that IE7 has given me.

I will keep my eyes open re any worhtwhile registry hacks that may be out there also.

And, as I noted, I intend to seriously consider installing FireFox.

Bocaire

 

[Bocaire]

Hi Linney,

I've managed to resolve one of the issues that bothered me with IE7.

When I'm in Google news, I was trying to use the ZOOM feature to give me larger and easier to read text. But setting ZOOM at 125% ended up giving me the scroll bar at the bottom of the page, and I had to scroll left to see the necessary parts of the page.

And every time I switched to a different page in the news, it recentered horizontally, and I had to go down and scroll back to the left.

However, leaving ZOOM at 100% (where there is no horizontal scroll bar called up), and then going into PAGE>TEXT SIZE, at the upper right page area, I can change the text size to whatever I want and this will not impact things - no scroll bar is invoked.

So, one issue has been resolved. Now, if I could only get the LINKS toolbar to stay there for tabbed pages, I'd be very happy.

Bocaire