Did Windows Update Break Your IE7?
Posted by Stephen on
May 12, 2007
After my system auto rebooted itself last night, I was treated to a forced update by Windows Update. This update was for Internet Explorer 7 (IE7). Now normally, updates are supposed to fix things, and plug holes. Unfortunately, this update broke IE7 (yes, I still use it sometimes) and gave me the wonderful dialogue below…
It kept wanting me to save “navcand” from “ieframe.dll”. Umm… Ooookay… So I go ahead and save it, and it gives me an error, then IE7 immediately shuts down. Well, that’s no good. I tried rebooting the machine, I tried uninstalling the patch from “Add Remove Program”. No luck. Now what did work was downloading the latest version of IE7 again (using FireFox) and then uninstalling and reinstalling IE7. That seemed to work, but after installing the Windows Update Patch again, it broke…again…
Now why Microsoft would send a patch out that disabled their own browser, I don’t know. But what I do know is how to temporarily fix it till Microsoft sorts their crap out…
What you’re going to have to do to restore browser functionality after installing the Windows Update Patch that breaks it is disable the Anti-Phishing Filter. I don’t know why this patch breaks IE7 and I don’t know why this works, but it works. Just go into Control Panel, find Internet Options, then go to the advanced options tab. Near the bottom of the list is the Anti-Phishing filter. Just disable it, accept the changes, and fire up IE7. It should be working after that.
I hope this helps someone out. I spent a couple hours looking for a solution. Thanks goodness for FireFox! I can only imagine how many people are pissed off right now after installing this patch, only to find out that they can no longer use their browser. What was Microsoft thinking?
Your first problem is your running IE in the first place.
Use Firefox like the rest of the world
Traffic to any site that I keep tabs on (including work) is 85% Firefox anyway
Besides if you want to see how a website was intended to look you use Firefox! IE breaks the 3W Consortium standards! hehe
Windows Update doesn’t work in FireFox. Some sites looked screwed up in anything else but IE. Unfortunately, its still, occasionally, a necessary evil. An evil that disables itself. Silly.
I hate Internet Explorer as much as the next geek - but you can’t really hate Microsoft for this - do you know how many thousands of lines of code govern each program?!?!?
Things break from time to time - even Mozilla has problems here and there!
I admit it, I only use IE. Maybe it’s just habit, but I don’t have any reason to switch. And the update did not break mine.
I still use IE from time to time but Firefox is my primary browser as well. I didn’t notice the latest update causing a problem with my instance of IE but will try to verify tonight.
FF is my primary as well but, as a webmaster, I use IE quite a bit - although I wish I didn’t have to!
Thanks a lot man, saved me some time looking for solution. The reality is that IE is still more “universal”, especially in the business world. I’ve made a couple of attempts to switch to FF, but had to go back to IE because something was not working - like a banking site not displaying some pages correctly.
Cool. Glad that helped a few people out.
In the last two years, I have had more site render incorrectly in Internet Explorer then in Firefox!