Troubleshooting

This section of the Deployment Guide provides information about troubleshooting the deployment of Windows® Internet Explorer® 8 in a corporate environment. Troubleshooting topics are provided in the following areas:

  • IEAK 8 and custom packages

  • Internet Explorer 8 installation and uninstallation

  • Group Policy settings

  • Internet Explorer 8 client issues

For more information about troubleshooting specific Internet Explorer 8 features and behaviors, see the following resources:

IEAK 8 and custom packages

The following are some common issues that you might encounter in a corporate environment when you use the Internet Explorer Administration Kit 8 (IEAK 8), or when you deploy the customized Internet Explorer 8 packages that you created using IEAK 8.

For more information, see:

Unable to locate pages or features in the Internet Explorer Customization Wizard 8

Various IEAK 8 installation or configuration choices can prevent you from accessing certain pages in the Internet Explorer Customization Wizard 8.

To resolve this issue, try one of the following:

  • Make sure that you selected the correct version of IEAK 8 during installation (for most administrators, the Corporate version is correct).

  • On the Platform Selection page of the wizard, make sure that you selected the correct operating system. For some operating systems, not all pages are available.

  • On the Feature Selection page of the wizard, make sure that all the features you want to customize are selected. Screens for a feature are not displayed if the check box for it is not selected.

Note

Some resource files described in IEAK 8 Help and in this deployment guide are not installed until after you download or synchronize Internet Explorer 8 in the Automatic Version Synchronization page of the Internet Explorer Customization Wizard 8.

Unable to start Profile Manager

If you are unable to start IEAK Profile Manager according to the instructions in Managing Browser Settings Through IEAK 8 Profile Manager, you must first run the Internet Explorer Customization Wizard 8 to completion.

Branding changes made through automatic configuration are not applied

The Internet Explorer Customization Wizard 8, IEAK Profile Manager, and some Internet Explorer Maintenance (IEM) settings enable you to make specific branding changes in the browsers that you deploy to your users' computers (including customizing the Internet Explorer 8 title bar and toolbar).

Branding changes distributed to users' computers through automatic configuration are not applied if the Disable external branding of Internet Explorer policy is set in Group Policy on the users' computers. This policy prevents branding of Internet Explorer by a non-Microsoft company or entity such as an Internet service provider or Internet content provider.

For more information about automatic configuration, see Using Automatic Configuration, Automatic Proxy, and Automatic Detection.

For more information about Group Policy settings for Internet Explorer 8 in an Active Directory environment, see Managing Browser Settings Through IEAK 8 Profile Manager.

Internet Explorer 8 installation and uninstallation

The following are ways to help you troubleshoot installing and uninstalling Internet Explorer 8 on your users' computers.

For more installation troubleshooting information, see the Release Notes for Internet Explorer 8 at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=160113.

Internet Explorer Setup process fails

If Setup fails, you can troubleshoot errors by using the Setup log files:

  • IE8_main.log

  • IE8.log

When you run IE8Setup.exe, the log files are created in the folder where Windows is installed (typically, the C:\Windows folder). The files document the entire process from the moment IE8Setup.exe starts running until the last .cab file is downloaded.

As you go through the Setup Wizard, log entries are continually written to these files. Most log entries are also written to the registry. This data is recorded to assist with safe recovery. The error codes below can help you determine what Setup was doing when it failed, and the cause of the failure.

Log entry Meaning

0

Initializing, making a temporary folder, and checking disk space.

1

Checking for all dependencies.

2

Downloading files from the server.

3

Copying files from download location to temporary installation folder.

4

Restarting download and retrying Setup because of a time-out error or other download error.

5

Checking trust and permissions.

6

Extracting files.

7

Running Setup program (.inf or .exe file).

8

Installation is finished.

9

Download finished, and all files are downloaded.

The following table identifies other common error codes.

Error code Description

80100003

Files are missing from the download folder during installation.

800bxxxx

Any error starting with 800b is a trust failure.

800cxxxx

Any error starting with 800c is a Urlmon.dll failure.

Unable to install Internet Explorer 8 after download

When you download Internet Explorer 8 to your server, Setup determines the version of the operating system that is currently running, and it automatically downloads the appropriate files. Because these files are unique to each operating system, you cannot download the Internet Explorer 8 installation files to one operating system and then install Internet Explorer 8 on a different operating system.

If you try to deploy Internet Explorer 8 from files that were downloaded by using a different operating system than the one your users are currently running, the following error message might appear during installation:

The Internet Explorer files on your computer are not the correct files for your operating system. To continue, you must download the correct files from the Internet. Do you want to continue?

To quit Setup, click No. To resolve this installation issue, click Yes to continue Setup, and then download the appropriate files from the Internet.

Error message appears: "Internet Explorer could not be installed"

Because of a failure by Setup to modify one or more registry subkeys during Internet Explorer 8 installation (or due to other trust or permissions issues), you may receive the following error message:

Internet Explorer 8 could not be installed. You must restart your system to confirm that any changes to your system are undone.

After you restart, follow the "Internet Explorer Troubleshooting" shortcut on your desktop to get more information.

For detailed troubleshooting steps and workarounds for this issue, see article 917925 in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=63939).

Installation of Internet Explorer 8 never completes

If the Internet Explorer 8 installation from Windows Update appears to stop responding, it may be because Windows Update is unable to install applicable updates for Internet Explorer 8 (for example, the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool).

For details and workarounds, see article 926716 in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83356).

Group Policy settings

The following is an overview of troubleshooting Group Policy settings for Internet Explorer 8.

For an introduction to Group Policy settings that apply to Internet Explorer 8, as well as an overview of administrative tools to manage and troubleshoot Group Policy settings, see Managing Browser Settings with Group Policy Tools.

For a general Group Policy troubleshooting framework, see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=55503.

Unable to find Advanced Settings in Internet Explorer Maintenance

With Internet Explorer Maintenance (IEM), you can configure Internet Explorer 8 settings in a Group Policy object in one of two modes: Normal mode or Preference mode.

Enabling Preference mode in IEM exposes an additional Advanced folder in the console tree, with further Corporate Settings and Internet Settings that you can configure. Unlike Normal mode settings, Preference mode settings are default settings on users' browsers that users can change later.

To work with IEM in Preference mode, see Managing Browser Settings with Group Policy Tools.

IEM policies are not applied in Preference mode

You may experience the following issues when you try to apply an IEM policy setting to your user's computers:

  • The policy is applied only one time, even if you have enabled the setting Process even if the Group Policy objects have not changed.

  • The policy does not respond to the GPUPDATE/FORCE command.

This behavior is by design in IEM Preference mode. Preference mode provides the initial settings for your users without enforcing these settings. For example, a user can set the corporate intranet portal page as a home page. If no other restrictions apply, the user can modify these settings.

When an IEM setting is in Preference mode, the policy will only be applied to a user's computer again when the policy has changed. At that time, the new preferences will be introduced on the user's computer.

To enforce a specific configuration on your users' computers, use Normal mode in IEM or use Administrative Templates settings, as described in Managing Browser Settings with Group Policy Tools.

Differences exist between policies on a computer running Internet Explorer 8 and a computer running an earlier version of Internet Explorer

When polices that were applied to earlier versions of Internet Explorer are applied on computers that are running Internet Explorer 8, Group Policy object (GPO) reporting tools show that some policies are disabled. This issue applies to the following Administrative Templates policies for Internet Explorer 8:

  • Disable AutoComplete for forms

  • Turn on the auto-complete feature for user names and passwords on forms

In addition, when some policies that originally applied to earlier versions of Internet Explorer are applied on computers that are running Internet Explorer 8, GPO reporting tools show that some extra registry keys have been created. These extra keys have blank values. You can configure the policies to specify a registry value for the extra keys when you apply the policies on a computer that is running Internet Explorer 8. However, the values for the extra registry keys will remain blank, even though the status of the policy is shown correctly.

This issue applies to the following Administrative Templates policies for Internet Explorer 8:

  • Disable changing home page settings

  • Disable "Configuring History"

  • Check for signatures on downloaded programs

Resultant Set of Policy shows incorrect source GPO for IEM settings in Windows XP with SP2

Resultant Set of Policy (RSoP) in Windows XP with SP2 incorrectly displays "IEAK" as the name of the source Group Policy object (GPO) for all IEM settings, instead of displaying the name of the GPO in which the setting is defined.

For more information about this incorrect display, see article 327496 in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=85647).

The "Turn off sending URLs as UTF-8" policy setting does not function as expected

The Turn off sending URLs as UTF-8 policy setting for Internet Explorer 8 specifies whether to use UTF-8 to exchange Internet addresses (URLs) that contain characters in any language. (UTF-8 is a standard that defines characters so that they are readable in any language.)

The Turn off sending URLs as UTF-8 policy setting behaves opposite of what is specified in the explanation text for this policy:

  • When you enable the policy, Internet Explorer 8 allows you to use UTF-8 to send URLs and does not block them.

  • When you disable this policy, users cannot use UTF-8 characters in a URL.

Unable to set "Folder Redirection" policy setting on a computer running Windows XP with SP2 that also uses Group Policy settings to customize Internet Explorer 8

You cannot set the Folder Redirection policy setting on a computer running Windows XP with SP2 that also uses IEM Group Policy settings to customize Internet Explorer.

To resolve this issue, apply the hotfix described in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 888254 (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83359).

Unable to locate "Populate list of search providers" policy setting

Internet Explorer 8 lets users select the search provider they want to use for searching the Internet. A list of search providers is available in the Internet Explorer 8 toolbar search box. Users can add or remove search providers from this list, and select a default search provider.

Actions that are related to search providers, including restricting the list of search providers, are controlled by Group Policy settings. Many of these refer to the Populate list of search providers policy setting.

As an administrator you can provide a custom search provider list by using this policy setting. However, by default, this policy setting is not available. To include it, you must manually create Administrative Template files for your Windows operating system.

To learn how to create these Administrative Templates, and for details about the Populate list of search providers policy setting, see article 918238 in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=67808).

Unable to locate "Enable customizing the elevation policy for Protected mode" policy setting

In Windows Vista, securable objects automatically inherit the integrity level of the process that created them. Therefore, files or registry keys have a low integrity when they are created in Protected mode. By default, when Internet Explorer 8 runs in Protected mode, the extensions cannot access medium- or high-integrity objects. This provides the best protection against malicious software attacks.

When an extension requires access to higher-integrity objects, the user is prompted through a dialog box. If the user confirms the elevation, a broker process with a higher integrity level accesses the object on behalf on Internet Explorer 8.

As an administrator you can override this default behavior. If you enable the Enable customizing the elevation policy for Protected mode policy setting, the user is not prompted to elevate. However, by default, this policy setting is not available. To include it, you must manually create Administrative Template files for your Windows operating system.

For information about how to create Administrative Templates to enforce the desired elevation policy, see article 918239 in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83360).

Internet Explorer 8 client issues

The following are topics related to troubleshooting features or behaviors of Internet Explorer 8 on your users' computers.

Resetting Internet Explorer 8 settings

If Internet Explorer 8 on a user's computer is in an unstable state, you can use the Reset Internet Explorer Settings (RIES) feature in Internet Explorer 8 to restore the default settings of many browser features, including:

  • Search scopes

  • Appearance settings

  • Toolbars

  • ActiveX® controls (reset to opt-in state, unless they are pre-approved)

  • Branding settings created by using IEAK 8

You can choose to reset personal settings by using the Delete Personal Settings option for:

  • Home pages

  • Browsing history

  • Form data

  • Passwords

RIES disables all custom toolbars, browser extensions, and customizations that have been installed with Internet Explorer 8. To use any of these disabled customizations, you must selectively enable each customization through the Manage Add-ons dialog box.

RIES does not:

  • Clear the Favorites list.

  • Clear the RSS Feeds.

  • Clear the Web Slices.

  • Reset connection or proxy settings.

  • Affect Administrative Template Group Policy settings that you apply.

Note

Unless you enable the Internet Explorer Maintenance policy processing Group Policy setting, Normal mode settings on the browser created by using IEM are lost after you use RIES.

To use RIES in Internet Explorer 8

  1. Click the Tools menu, and then click Internet Options.

  2. On the Advanced tab, click Reset.

  3. In the Reset Internet Explorer Settings dialog box, click Reset. To remove personal settings, select the Delete Personal Settings checkbox. To remove branding, select the Remove Branding checkbox.

  4. When Internet Explorer 8 finishes restoring the default settings, click Close, and then click OK two times.

  5. Close Internet Explorer 8. The changes take effect the next time you open Internet Explorer 8.

For more information about the RIES feature, see:

Note

To prevent users from using the RIES feature, enable the Do not allow resetting Internet Explorer settings policy setting in Administrative Templates.

Troubleshooting Internet Explorer 8 add-ons

To isolate browser issues that might be related to Internet Explorer 8 add-ons, you can selectively disable one or more browser add-ons.

To disable a browser add-on

  1. Click the Tools menu, click Manage Add-ons, and then click Enable or Disable Add-ons.

  2. Click the add-on you want to disable, click Disable, and then click OK.

Alternatively, you can turn off all add-ons temporarily in Internet Explorer 8 by starting in No add-ons mode.

To start Internet Explorer 8 in No add-ons mode

  1. Click Start, click All Programs, and then click Accessories.

  2. Click System Tools, and then click Internet Explorer (No Add-ons).

Note

You can also start Internet Explorer 8 without add-ons by right-clicking the Internet Explorer 8 icon on the desktop, and then clicking Start Without Add-ons. Or start Internet Explorer 8 with no add-ons or toolbars by running the command iexplore.exe -extoff.

Troubleshooting proxy server configurations

If your organization uses a proxy server on a local area network (LAN) to connect to the Internet, you may need to troubleshoot proxy server configurations in the browsers that you deploy to your users' computers.

Follow these steps to help you troubleshoot your proxy server configurations:

Step 1: Verify the proxy server address.

Step 2: Verify that automatic detection and automatic configuration are enabled within the browser.

Step 3: Verify that the browser is configured with the correct automatic configuration script address.

To verify your proxy server address in Internet Explorer 8

  1. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options, and then click the Connections tab.

  2. Click Settings or LAN Settings.

  3. In the Proxy server dialog box, verify the address. Click Advanced to verify the addresses if you configured multiple proxy servers.

If Internet Explorer 8 uses a proxy server for a local IP address (even if the Bypass Proxy Server for Local Addresses check box is selected), see article 262981 in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=85652).

To verify that automatic detection and automatic configuration are enabled

  1. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options, and then click the Connections tab.

  2. Click Settings or LAN Settings.

  3. In the Automatic configuration dialog box, verify that the Automatically detect settings check box is selected. If you enabled automatic configuration, verify that the Use automatic configuration script check box is selected.

If you determine that automatic detection and automatic configuration are configured correctly and the proxy server detection still fails, click Detect my network settings in the Error dialog box to attempt the proxy server detection again.

To verify that the browser is configured with the correct automatic configuration script address

  1. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options, and then click the Connections tab.

  2. Click Settings or LAN Settings.

  3. In the Automatic configuration dialog box, verify that the Use automatic configuration script check box is selected, and that the address is correct for your automatic configuration or automatic proxy URL.