Hello, Folks - my first post in here but I fix PCs for a living and post regularly into TSG. I have an odd problem in a 64 bit Vista system involving IE8. It appears in the Start Menu but Firefox is Default because IE has been playing up for a while. Now the user has a DRM issue in Media Player 11 and I urgently need to get IE working as Firefox cannot download the required files.
When I open IE it immediately throws an error message and closes down. I go to uninstall it and get a fresh download and it fails even to appear in Control, Panel>Program etc. I try to delete the IE8folder or parts thereof and am told I dont have sufficient rights to do that. I throw in an IE8-WindowsVista-64-ENU.exe file from a flash drive and am told it cannot be installed in this system, despite it appearing to be the right file.
The really odd thing is that it works perfectly when calling down Updates and as long as it does that, there's no need to fix it but this DRM issue implies the music files have been ripped or copied more than five times. I'm assured that isn't the case but they have just been copied from an older laptop to this new one. I've copied the relevant Registry entry form the old machine but that hasn't fooled the system one bit.
So there we are - a long sad tale but the crux is I either need suggestions as to fixing IE8 or how to fiddle Firefox to accept the WMP plug-in it doesn't seem to want to accept.
I've sorted this one now, folks - IE appeared in two separate folders and the default in Start Menu was the x86 version, which is why it closed on sight of a 64 bit system. I love it when the answer is a simple one and having fixed it, I don't mind admitting I missed the obvious answer.
In a 64-bit Vista you have two versions of Internet Explorer. A 32-bit (in Program Files (x86) and 64-bit (in Program Files) version. Both should run perfectly well in Vista with the 32-bit version as the default since there are very few if any add-ons (ex: Adobe Flash Player) available for the 64-bit version.
Since you say that the 64-bit version run well and the 32-bit does not, this leads to me to think it may be an installed add-on that may be the problem. Try resetting Internet Explorer to see if it will let you run the default 32-bit Internet Explorer afterwards.
Thanks for that, Shawn but I've shipped this one back now. They've had Firefox and been quite happy with it for a while so although I had briefly to set IE as Default, it's now back to Firefox because they depend heavily on X-Marks.
I've stored this new found knowledge in what remains of my single brain cell but I still can't believe I missed the obvious hint in the message that "a more recent version of this is already installed" when I tried to reinstall. Media Player may have been the culprit for failing to notify IE that it might need an add-on to handle the DRM Licence which, by the way, came in quietly once 64 bit IE8 was set as Default.
I'd mark this thread as Solved but can't find the button.
No problem. I'm just happy that they are happy and that you got it sorted.
You can click on the report icon (red triangle with exclamation mark) at the top right corner of a post to report the thread as solved though. It's marked now.