What a week!

04/04/2009 by Bertha.

and Internet Explorer is playing up!!

OK so it’s not Internet Explorer as in world wide, just as in on my computer (Big Bertha). You might recognize the problem though, click on a link and, just like magic,  Internet Explorer goes to sleep and makes you wait. Finally after what seems like hours (but really is just a few seconds) it decides to do you a favour and open the link.

Well after much rootling around (computer term?), Googling (slowly - see above) and “poking and hoping” (another computer term honest!) I’ve chased it down to one or more of the ”add-ons” which run with Big Bertha’s Internet Explorer. Guess what, I didn’t even realise most of them were running much less installed!

Want to know how many “add-ons” you have installed? Open Internet Explorer and click on “Tools” (towards the top right of the window and/or in with File Edit etc to the top left). Now look for the choice “Manage Add-ons” and move your mouse over this choice. A new window will open to one side and you need to click on “Enable or Disable Add-ons”.

By default you will now see a list of the add-ons which are currently being used by Internet Explorer. There are other options but they relate to ones which have been used in the past so can be ignored, especially if you have current problems. By clicking on each of the add-ons in the list in turn you can disable or enable them in turn. Getting the right one is a matter of trial and error, isn’t it always?

Which trail and error is best? Largely it’s up to you, either disable the lot and then enable one at a time until the problem reappears and that’s the one causing the problems, or disable one at a time until the problem stops and that’s the one. For a problem like Big Bertha’s, where it freezes all the time, disable the lot - things happen much quicker!

Like everything computer wise, problems with one program are often caused by something else, other programs and faulty hardware being up there among the prime suspects. I even had a problem with a printer this week where Hewlett Packard advise a problem is caused by plugging the printer into a surge protector and not directly into a wall socket of it’s own!

Sherlock Holmes has nothing on a Computer “Expert”!

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