[SOLVED] Erratic link opening

Hi this is my first post here and hopefully someone can help! I have had Win 7 for a while now and been quite happy with it. Recently, and this could be a prob with IE (but I haven't been able to prove that), I began to notice problems with opening links in certain circumstances, where there was never a prob with opening them anywhere before. I can not open any links in emails now, and about 50% of the time I can't open internal links in websites. A good example would be opening a ups tracking link, or a payment page link on a utility site. This was never an issue before. What happens is it opens a new blank window and nothing ever loads into that window. I thought it might be the new IE explorer 9, so I reverted that machine back to 8, but still the same. I have two laptops running IE 8 and I have sat them side by side with this desktop and checked all the internet settings (advanced too!) between them and they are identical, but the laptops have no prob opening the same links! It's making me crazy! I have run numerous virus/spyware/malware scans and nothing shows up anywhere. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. Oh, ps , sometimes if I right click on the links and go to properties and copy the link address and then paste it into the http address box, I can successfully get to the link destination??

The most likely causes are your Anti-virus software, your firewall(s), or browser add-ons (Tools ... Manage Add-ons). For emails it can also be the email applications settings (what do you use for email?). Compare those items between the two machines.

I have tried all your suggestions and nothing seems to work. Even reinstalled Anti virus(Mcaffee) and tried making sure both firewalls were turned off. No luck. Another interesting glitch is that different programs kept telling me I didn't have the latest Flash player installed (which I know I did) When I tried to download the latest Flashplayer download the button just kept doing a turnaround back to itself?? (In other words the actual download window never opens, it just goes back to the "download now" window) Had to download on another machine and save to flash drive to reinstall on this machine. Cleaned registry and once again no improvement.

Try doing a clean boot to narrow down the issue with any external sources like AV's, Firewall programs, etc...

Open IE, and check links, if it continues, then we can start to check the settings with your IE program itself. And a few other system variables/obstacles that will always stay the same, like your HOSTS file.

Note: some links are tied in with javascript codes, I use them all the time to do url redirects. You can inspect the elements to determine if they are or not.

You might also try a different browser or try "Internet Explorer (no add-ons)"

Ok I have solved the problem, though I am not certain what it was exactly. From both of your suggestions, I remembered there were different IE available on same machine(once again as you both suggested!) I have had a shortcut on the taskbar since i got this machine and it always worked ok. I went to the program menu and opened the 64 bit IE (this is a 64 bit machine and i just assumed the taskbar IE was the 64 bit version) The links worked fine on this IE. I checked the addons and it had about half of the ones I had on the trouble IE(which were all from reputable vendors like Adobe, MS, Google Java etc.) I disabled the ones which were not on the 64 bit version to see if this would help the other, and it didn't. So something changed on that IE, or it isn't 64 bit version and now that wont work any more??? Don't know but happy to have everything working now, and will only use 64 bit IE!!! Thanks for helping me look in right direction!

Any time you click a URL link from any where other than within a browser it will open the 32-bit IE. There are not as many add-ins available yet for 64-bit and currently no way to make IE 64 be the default.

Also of important note, if your anti-virus is 32-bit (like Norton does not offer a 64-bit AV yet) then it will not offer much protection in the 64-bit browser, leaving you much more vulnerable.

If you do have a 64-bit AV and the add-ons available are satisfactory for your needs then it may be perfect for you but I do believe, since it works in 64 and not in 32, that the issue is almost definitely an add-on or setting within your 32-bit version (including security and possibly your AV).