Can we, and more importantly should we, make IE7 look like IE6?
Just because you can do something does not mean that you should. The following is a BAD IDEA!
http://marulogger.blogspot.com/2006/11/make-ie-7-look-like-ie-6.html and http://www.byteburn.com/2006/10/30/how-to-make-ie7-look-exactly-like-ie6 are reporting a way to "make IE7 look like IE6".
I decided to test this out,. First I created a shortcut as per the instructions.
Sure, it made IE7 look like IE6, but in my tests every time a hyperlink opened a page in a new window, the hybrid IE (and that is exactly what it is, a hybrid) crashed, or froze, and the "critical stop" sound event was heard. The new window was extremely slow to load, and kept stealing focus over other applications. IE had to be shut down using Task Manager several times during testing.
Even after shutting down IE using Task Manager, my system froze every time I tried to open a new tab or window, even when starting IE7 the normal way, until I rebooted the system.
In addition, by starting IE7 using the shortcut described you will lose access to IE7's RSS ability, Manage Add-Ons will disappear, you will not have a Phishing Filter, and the Internet Options interface is the old fashioned IE6 version.
I tested by opening IE7 using the shortcut described, going to the link below and then clicking on the "Fiddlertool" hyperlink that will open the Fiddlertool site in a new window.
http://www.ie-vista.com/sites.html
In short, please don't mess around with kludges like this. Things breaks and don't work properly and you lose very basic abilities. The directory in question is there just in case you want to uninstall IE7 and go back to IE6.