Internet Explorer 8 - WTF?

[Darth Wong]

OK, so Windows Update installs IE8 on my computer. I don't particularly care since I use Firefox anyway, but on a lark I try firing it up.

First time it runs, it locks up. Great. So I kill it and load it a second time, and it starts up OK (that's Microsoft for you: if something doesn't work, try it again with no change whatsoever in procedure, and it just might work this time). But when I go to my own website to see how it renders, I discover that 100% of the text is italicized, even though nothing of the sort is specified in the CSS. Why would this be happening?

[Enigma]

A complete MS screw up. Briefly using IE8 caused it to crash so many times that I decided to forget it send stick to Firefox 100%. Now I am wondering why I didn't do so before.

[General Zod]

I just fired it up to test it and didn't notice anything weird. Did you get a shitload of choices for components to update when it went through initial setup after the Windows Update installed it?

[Enigma]

I just fired it up to test it and didn't notice anything weird. Did you get a shitload of choices for components to update when it went through initial setup after the Windows Update installed it?

I do not recall. It has been a while. It doesn't matter as I've realized that Firefox is lightyears ahead of IE8.

EDIT: Also, I have three windows open with a total of 14 tabs on Firefox and it doesn't even hiccup, whereas IE8 dies a horrible death with just one window with about 6 tabs open.

[Ryan Thunder]

What the fuck is it about my computers, that I can run IE8 in Windows Vista ("oh the horror", I'm told) without problems from the get go, while everybody else has bizarre issues?

I mean, fuck, Vista ran fine out of the box, too. It just took a little tweaking in the preferences, which is hardly unreasonable.

Am I the magic Windows man or something?

I just fired it up to test it and didn't notice anything weird. Did you get a shitload of choices for components to update when it went through initial setup after the Windows Update installed it?

I do not recall. It has been a while. It doesn't matter as I've realized that Firefox is lightyears ahead of IE8.

EDIT: Also, I have three windows open with a total of 14 tabs on Firefox and it doesn't even hiccup, whereas IE8 dies a horrible death with just one window with about 6 tabs open.

You're doing something wierd. I have 22 tabs open in three different windows right now, plus Autodesk Inventor 2009 and Adobe Photoshop Elements, and everything's just breezing along.

[Starglider]

This isn't an IE8-specific problem; IE7 occasionally did the same thing. The problem is that the font database can get corrupted, and it appears that the IE7->IE8 update process is one of the things that can cause that. The only reliable way I know of to fix this problem is to identify which font is overriding the font you want and delete it (then reinstall it if required).

[Ryan Thunder]

Oh, and its not just Vista or IE8, either. XP ran without trouble, too. The last time I saw a blue screen was when I put a BSoD as my desktop because I was in a funny mood. That was six (?) years ago...

I must be some kind of mutant with powers of Microsoft Software Stabilization.

[Darth Wong]

Oh, and its not just Vista or IE8, either. XP ran without trouble, too. The last time I saw a blue screen was when I put a BSoD as my desktop because I was in a funny mood. That was six (?) years ago...

I must be some kind of mutant with powers of Microsoft Software Stabilization.

This is like a smoker trying to make a big deal out of the fact that he hasn't gotten lung cancer yet. Nobody said it fucks up 100% of the time for 100% of the people. But your responses in this thread are completely worthless spam. They do not help anyone with their problems: they seem to serve no purpose other than to give yourself an excuse to waste bandwidth.

[Ryan Thunder]

Oh, and its not just Vista or IE8, either. XP ran without trouble, too. The last time I saw a blue screen was when I put a BSoD as my desktop because I was in a funny mood. That was six (?) years ago...

I must be some kind of mutant with powers of Microsoft Software Stabilization.

This is like a smoker trying to make a big deal out of the fact that he hasn't gotten lung cancer yet. Nobody said it fucks up 100% of the time for 100% of the people. But your responses in this thread are completely worthless spam. They do not help anyone with their problems: they seem to serve no purpose other than to give yourself an excuse to waste bandwidth.

Well, I'm sorry you feel that way. I'll refrain from such contribution in future.

I would like to help other folks to have stable systems like I do, but I'd have to know what other people are doing differently...

Biggest thing is I don't run the Administrator ID unless I'm doing Administrator things. I download updates when I get them. I do regular virus scans. That seems pretty standard, though.

[Duckie]

I tried IE8 and found out that random buttons on my keyboard don't work in IE8. Now that is bizarre. I'm glad I use Firefox.

[Xon]

First time it runs, it locks up. Great. So I kill it and load it a second time, and it starts up OK (that's Microsoft for you: if something doesn't work, try it again with no change whatsoever in procedure, and it just might work this time).

IE8 does a lot of stuff to work even when something went wrong. It probably has blacklisted a plugin which made it crash or something.

But when I go to my own website to see how it renders, I discover that 100% of the text is italicized, even though nothing of the sort is specified in the CSS. Why would this be happening?

Screwed Fonts. Some 3rd party app probably screwed with some font and the upgrade process broke something. The only way to fix this, is find the corrupted font under "C:\Windows\Fonts" (or similar) and delete it and replace it with a proper version.

[General Zod]

This isn't an IE8-specific problem; IE7 occasionally did the same thing. The problem is that the font database can get corrupted, and it appears that the IE7->IE8 update process is one of the things that can cause that. The only reliable way I know of to fix this problem is to identify which font is overriding the font you want and delete it (then reinstall it if required).

I assumed it might have been related to all the extra crap IE8 wants you to instal once you download the browser. I did a custom update and said no to all of it, so I thought it might have been related to that somehow.

[Xon]

I assumed it might have been related to all the extra crap IE8 wants you to instal once you download the browser. I did a custom update and said no to all of it, so I thought it might have been related to that somehow.

None of the crap includes extra fonts.

[General Zod]

I assumed it might have been related to all the extra crap IE8 wants you to instal once you download the browser. I did a custom update and said no to all of it, so I thought it might have been related to that somehow.

None of the crap includes extra fonts.

I didn't see anything about extra fonts mentioned, just that it displayed fonts in italics. If some of these updates broke its ability to render sites properly or fucked up the default display options it would explain what happened.

[Darth Wong]

I copied the Arial fonts over from another computer, and the problem went away. Starglider was correct: the IE8 installation corrupted my fonts. Fucking Microsoft ...

[Ryan Thunder]

Mike;

Screwed Fonts. Some 3rd party app probably screwed with some font and the upgrade process broke something. The only way to fix this, is find the corrupted font under "C:\Windows\Fonts" (or similar) and delete it and replace it with a proper version.

Bolded for emphasis.

90% of the time, when something fucks up, its probably just shoddily written freeware interacting badly with Microsoft code (which, by the way, they can do jack and shit about without reviewing every app ever written for Windows.) Do you use a lot of freeware?

[Darth Wong]

Mike;

Screwed Fonts. Some 3rd party app probably screwed with some font and the upgrade process broke something. The only way to fix this, is find the corrupted font under "C:\Windows\Fonts" (or similar) and delete it and replace it with a proper version.

Bolded for emphasis.

Ah, and yet the font was completely normal until the moment that IE8 installed itself, despite having been replaced by this mysterious third-party app long before, right? Yeah, sure.

[Xon]

IE8 is likely changing which fonts it uses compared to previous versions. So yes. you could have had a previously corrupted font which nothing you noticed was using or worse, you could have had the Arial fonts aliased to something else which was corrupt and the act of installing them again killed the alias causing the actual Arial fonts to be used.

Determining cause and effect in computing is a very hard problem, especially on a general computing platform.

[Oskuro]

90% of the time, when something fucks up, its probably just shoddily written freeware interacting badly with Microsoft code (which, by the way, they can do jack and shit about without reviewing every app ever written for Windows.) Do you use a lot of freeware?

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Whoa, whoa, slow down a bit, sonny, you don't want Microsoft coming too fast into your mouth, do you? Let them enjoy for a while.

[Darth Wong]

IE8 is likely changing which fonts it uses compared to previous versions. So yes. you could have had a previously corrupted font which nothing you noticed was using or worse, you could have had the Arial fonts aliased to something else which was corrupt and the act of installing them again killed the alias causing the actual Arial fonts to be used.

Determining cause and effect in computing is a very hard problem, especially on a general computing platform.

Bullshit. This font was ARIAL, which I use all the time and which was most definitely normal until IE8 installed itself.

[Terralthra]

I recently accidentally upgraded to IE8 on two computers I was rebuilding for clients, and it fucked up on both in new and exciting ways. On one, the entire menu interface was blacked out, with no way to see what I was clicking on. Another had similar out as DW's example, with corrupted fonts and images.

In another MS WTF, what the shit is Windows Search 4.0? It's another "upgrade" pushed out by MS Update, and it's absolute shit. It replaces the find files (win+f) interface with something that by default searches only outlook/outlook express, and requires considerable fucking with to get to do what the find files function it replaced did: FIND FUCKING FILES.

[Ryan Thunder]

90% of the time, when something fucks up, its probably just shoddily written freeware interacting badly with Microsoft code (which, by the way, they can do jack and shit about without reviewing every app ever written for Windows.) Do you use a lot of freeware?

Whoa, whoa, slow down a bit, sonny, you don't want Microsoft coming too fast into your mouth, do you? Let them enjoy for a while.

Fellatio jokes. Cute. I like how it took you all of about two days to come up with that, asshole.

I recently accidentally upgraded to IE8 on two computers I was rebuilding for clients, and it fucked up on both in new and exciting ways. On one, the entire menu interface was blacked out, with no way to see what I was clicking on. Another had similar out as DW's example, with corrupted fonts and images.

What the fuck are you or your clients doing with these machines?

That's such bizarre behaviour...

[Terralthra]

I recently accidentally upgraded to IE8 on two computers I was rebuilding for clients, and it fucked up on both in new and exciting ways. On one, the entire menu interface was blacked out, with no way to see what I was clicking on. Another had similar out as DW's example, with corrupted fonts and images.

What the fuck are you or your clients doing with these machines?

That's such bizarre behaviour...

Dude, they were rebuilds. The only thing that had been done to each was the hard drives were formatted and a clean copy of Windows installed, then Windows Update was run. IE8 is bugshit. Wrap your brain around it.

[Ryan Thunder]

Dude, they were rebuilds. The only thing that had been done to each was the hard drives were formatted and a clean copy of Windows installed, then Windows Update was run. IE8 is bugshit. Wrap your brain around it.

Well I must be doing something differently. I'm not even exaggerrating when I say I haven't had issues with Microsoft software for years, consistently.

[Darth Wong]

Dude, they were rebuilds. The only thing that had been done to each was the hard drives were formatted and a clean copy of Windows installed, then Windows Update was run. IE8 is bugshit. Wrap your brain around it.

Well I must be doing something differently. I'm not even exaggerrating when I say I haven't had issues with Microsoft software for years, consistently.

What part of "stop wasting my goddamned bandwidth with your fucking idiotic posts" do you not understand, douche-nozzle? You've done absolutely nothing in this thread except to boast that you're not one of the people having problems. Do you also post in threads about health problems by bragging that you're healthy, fucktard?

The fact that you're not personally experiencing these problems does not in any way cast doubt on their occurrence, you stupid little shit.