IE7 will not launch without right-clicking and selecting "Run as Administrator"
I received an interesting email asking for assistance with an IE7 problem from a Brian Hansen this morning which illustrates quite well why we cannot always assume that IE7 is "broken" or causing problems.
Brian's email said:
"My problem is that IE7 will not launch without right-clicking on “Run as Administrator.” Some of the postings I’ve read indicate that one should turn off all add-ons, reboot and try to launch ie7 again. I have done this without any improvement in the application’s ability to launch.
The dialogue box tells me that “a website wants to open web content using this program on your computer.” I’m assuming this is the infamous Account Control. The application is apparently “IE CRASH DETECTION”
If I tell it “Allow” IE 7 stops working, and I am given the option to close the program; it does close appropriately."
Now, what would you think is causing the problem if you read the above question. The immediate culprits for me would be an aberrant IE7 add-on (for example a toolbar or plug-in), or perhaps a problem with a Web page that had been set as the home page (for example, if a home page had been somehow hacked and was serving up hostile code).
The cause of the problem surprised me, and is something to keep in mind when you are trying to diagnose IE7 problems. Brian reported:
"An OCR program I installed with my Canon scanner (Omin SE) was trying to go out to the internet and grab and update, and it was creating a conflict. Finally figured out how to run MSCONFIG and turn off startups one or two at a time, until I found the culprit."
Brian's experience illustrates quite well that we should not always concentrate just on IE when trying to fix IE problems. How many of us would have thought to check on something unrelated to the internet such as OCR software when trying to diagnose problems with IE7? I wouldn't.