Oh man, windows xp update, viewing pages wrong, HELP!

[Rianna]

Omgosh. Whats the deal? I just did a windows xp update and now all my web pages are viewing wrong? What does xp have to do with the way browsers view pages? I thought browsers had their own programs, windows xp was only on our computers. Can someone please tell me why xp is affecting the browsers? This is a catastrophe!!! Please let me know why this is happening! Thank you very much.

[_Aerospace_Eng_]

They probably are viewing correctly. I'm guessing you were using IE at the time. Microsoft sent out an update so users can get their new browser IE7. The way IE7 displays pages is different than in IE6. Its more correct. Take a look at your page in a good browser like Firefox. You'll be surprised. http://www.getfirefox.com

[Rianna]

Gosh, looks like when I did an xp udate, it reinstalled the older version of IE which threw everything off.

So I redownloaded IE7 and viewing fine again thank ____. But I feel like this is a false sense of security now. For instance when I view the pages through Mozilla viewing fine but I think I have IE set as my default browser everywhere. So how can I make sure its viewing fine in each of the main browsers and they are not using IE? I want to make sure it views fine in all of browsers all on their own so that I know those not using IE can view them properly. Anyone know how I can adjust this to make sure its viewing per browser settings and not IE settings???

Unless you think EVERYONE uses IE as their default browser.
Please let me know your opinion on this and get back to me, thanks!! And thanks a lot Aero!

[Rianna]

I made mozilla my default and it looked fine, then I went back to IE being the default and it worked fine. I still don't understand this big point. Why did having the incorrect version of IE installed affect all these other browsers to view the pages incorrectly as well? Since IE is supposed to be a separate browser, why was it affecting all of those?

Last, anyone know how to set the default in Opera and AOL? I'd like to check those as well, theirs doesn't seem to be in "tools." Thanks a lot.

[toicontien]

You didn't have an incorrect version installed. Sounds like you just had an earlier version, so more than likely web sites in question might not work in IE6? Not sure. I had XP Media center puke several times because of Windows updates. I'd rather clean viruses and spyware than play the Russian Roulette game called "updating windows." I'm buying a Mac next time.

[Rianna]

Thanks for the information. :) I am having some relatives view my pages in their browser to see if viewing correctly. I am a bit nervous that they aren't after all this. If they say they are not viewing correctly then I'll have a few more questions. Because that will mean even if I set Mozilla and the others as default browsers, there default settings are being overridden by IE somehow. But that seems unlikely so I am hoping for the best.

[toicontien]

Your default browser is irrelevant for this problem. The default browser just tells Windows which program should handle requests to open Web pages. If you have IE as your default browser and you open Firefox, you're still using Firefox.

[Rianna]

That helped a lot, thanks.

[_Aerospace_Eng_]

Sighs. It sounds like you don't know that there is more than one version of Internet Explorer out there. You likely have IE7 because you allowed the update. IE7 overwrites IE6. To get IE6 back you'll need to run it as a standalone browser. http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

[Rianna]

I know theres more than one version of IE. I've known that for ages. What I don't get is why when xp was reinstalled and it reverted back to IE6 why ALL the browsers didn't view the pages correctly. Mozilla, Opera, Aol, all of them didn't view correctly anymore and they are all separate from IE. But when I reinstalled IE7, ALL of them viewed correctly again. At this time looks like everything is fine thank goodness, but I'd sure like to understand that in case I run into some problems in the future, understanding this might help me.

[_Aerospace_Eng_]

Reverting back to IE6 should have done nothing to the other browsers.

[Rianna]

I completely agree, but it affected all of them the exact same way. Just as soon as I redownloaded IE7 everything viewed fine again. Makes no sense to me either.