Why does Internet Explorer sometimes fail to connect to anything until I restart it?
- by cletus
IE has an annoying problem on my PC (XP SP3). I start it and try to go to Google (for example) and it'll sit there saying "Connecting" but nothing will happen and it doesn't matter how many times I try, it won't connect to anything.
I discovered that if I kill IE and restart it then it might start working (and then it'll work every time). It might takes 3-4 restarts (of IE, not the PC) to get a working IE.
Now I wouldn't normally care about this since I use Chrome but a lot of things use IE by default like Windows Update and the online help in Office 2003 so I would like to fix it.
Interestingly, my work laptop, which is running Windows 7 RC 64-bit, has exactly the same problem (completely different network and everything). I'm utterly convinced it's not a network or hardware problem but some software problem.
Edit: More info.
It's IE8;
No add-ons;
Automatically detect settings is not enabled.
It is set to "Never dial a connection".
