Thanks, Microsoft! →[More:]So IE6 had stopped working on a relative's computer. On just his single profile, IE would ... never open a window. No error message. No presence in the Task Manager. Nothing. This isn't a problem that's remotely like anything in the Knowledge Base. I tried the usual ways to trick it without success. It did work in safe mode, but running it there didn't change anything in standard mode. I even tried registry hacks. The last thing was reinstalling IE6 ... which changed nothing.

Meanwhile, through all of this, it works just like normal in his kids' profiles. What he really needed was a new Windows profile, but he didn't want to go through all the loss of settings that would entail. He uses AOL and SBC (AT&T) Yahoo, both of which depend on IE to run, and weren't affected in the least. It was just IE that couldn't open its own windows.

There it stood. Until the release of ... IE7. We figured it was a "worth trying" thing. Worst comes to worst ... he still doesn't have a browser he doesn't use, right?

Well. For his profile, where IE6 wouldn't open, the window comes up and says "Connecting", but it hits the ceiling on the taskbar with 99% of cycles. In his kids' profiles, it says the same thing, but you can close the window manually.