Everytime I launch IE, a new window pops open and fails to load the homepage. I receive the "The page cannot be displayed error." Reloading successfully brings up the correct page. Open in New Window and email URL links do successfully load the page, even if no browser window was previously opened. Regular web surfing and stuff like that seems to work find. Other applications...not links...that open an IE page with loaded information do not load correctly.
I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling IE...I'm running Windows 2000 SP3, IE 5.5 right now. I tried upgrading to IE 6, downgrading to the minimum IE that Windows allows you to uninstall to, and every combination like that.
Also, this problem does NOT affect another user account I have on this computer. My user and the other both have administrator access, and only my account and launching of IE seems affected.
I've run through the MS knowledge base articles I could find...tried reregistering the recommended .dll files
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q281679&ID=KB;EN-US;Q281679 explains "You Cannot Open New Internet Explorer Window..." and while the symptoms are similar, the problem isn't the exact same as some others I've seen. I ran through attempting to reregister all the dll files listed. They reregistered successfully and without complaint, but no help.
Popup windows load correctly.
For kicks, I tried running regsvr32 url.dll...which isn't listed in the KB but this .dll was referenced earlier in the article. I received the following error message...
"Url.dll was loaded, but the DllRegisterServer entry point was not found. DllRegisterServer may not be exported, or a corrupt version of Url.dll may be in memory. Consider using PView to detect and remove it."
If this is indeed my troublesome dll, I'm not certain how to find or use "PView" to wack it. Any suggestions for additional steps I might try, or thoughts on how I can repair or replace Url.dll and see if that helps.
