ALL popups are disabled

No pop-ups work for me now. Neither Firefox, IE7 nor Outlook are allowing pop-ups. I have double checked in "options" in each program to make sure that pop-ups are allowed.
Nothing in my firewall/security software seems to be blocking.
When a link is pressed (any program) I get the usual Vista "working" circle for a moment, then nothing.
I did have some registry problems recently & had to use system restore.
Might something in my registry have been set to forbid all pop ups system wide?

tools-internet options-privacy has popups. Do you have any toolbars with popup blocking?

No new toolbars. Just common ones. And pop-ups are blocked in Outlook too.

Also: "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -safe-mode will not open from command line too!