IE Will Not Launch New Windows

[Scorpion20]

The OS on my computer is Windows98 SE. For the longest time I ran Internet Explorer 5.5 with no problems. About a week ago I was bored and installed a few upgrades, such as Adobe Reader, Flash, Quick TIme, Spybot S&D, and a few system utilities whch I tested and subsequently disgarded. All seemed well, but a few days after my upgrade frenzy, Internet Explorer 5.5 exhibited one strange and perplexing problem for which I am at a loss to find a solution.

Whenever I click on a link to open a new window, the process hangs. A window opens which is a duplicate of the original one that launched it, and simply hangs from then on. I can stop the load attempt, and the target address appears in the address bar, but the web page to which it points does not load. A refresh at this point will load the target. If the link loads into the parent window, there is no problem.

I have rebuilt IE using the Control Panel utility to no avail. I looked at all the settings and found nothing amiss. I even upgraded from IE 5.5 to 6.x sp1, but the problem still exists.

I also use Mozilla and Opera on my system, but neiter of those browsers shows the same problem as does IE. Does anyone have some suggestions about how to troubleshoot and/or repair the problem?

[tireman]

Have you scanned for spyware, adware and virii yet? I noticed you had Spybot installed, might want to reinstall and check for spyware. Use adaware also and then scan for virii.

[Scorpion20]

My system was clean before the problem with IE showed up. I use AdAware, Spybot S&D, and Spyware Blaster to keep things under control I also scanned the system wtih the online version of NAV, and nothing was found.

Even though I bought the CD from Microsoft, I scanned the system with all my malware detectors after I upgraded to IE 6. I was amazed to see known malware installed, 6 sinister registry entries added, and SpywareBlaster reported that 243 new items now required protection. All of that has been fixed but the problem still exists.

I'm pretty confident that my system is malware free, and that some registry setting has be changed, or some .dll made inactive, or some file somewhere became corrupt. I'm not sure how to go about diagnosing the problem any more than I have tried already.

[helloimtim]

May help......http://windowsxp.mvps.org/IEFIX.htm

[Scorpion20]

Thanks for the tip Tim. It never occured to me that some of the program files may not be registered. Unfortunately, running the utility did not fix the problem.

After that disappointment, I decided it was time to reinstall Win98. So I did. But the problem is still there.

Now I'm starting to get depressed. Not because I miss Internet Explorer any, but I really would like to understand what is causing this problem.