Steps: Open IE on the desktop. Observe that home page opened. Click around (or not) and observe IE works. Either type ctrl-t or click on the new tab area next to current tab. Observe no new tab opens and the current page is now blank. At this point IE is inoperable and requires a restart. It seems to work fine in the Metro interface. I have reset the Internet Options and removed and re-added Internet Explorer under "Turn Windows Features on or off". Help :) Windows 8.1 Pro, 64-bit IE 11 AMD Phenom II X2 560 3.30 GHz 8 GB RAM