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Question

I have several shortcuts to web sites on my desktop. All of a sudden they don't connect, leaving a clock symbol in the lower left corner of the screen. If I paste the URL from the shortcut into Internet Explorer (that shortcut does work) it goes to the proper site.

Submitted: 414 days and 20 hours ago.
Category: Computer
Value: $15
Status: CLOSED
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Optional Information

OS: Windows XP; Browser: IE

Already Tried:
Nothing - this is so sudden and unusual I don't what to try.

Posted by B. Rath 414 days and 19 hours ago.

Answer

Hi,

The clock symbol at the lower left corner of IE appears when your browser is trying to get information from the specified website and load the same when provided. It usually occurs when the user's internet connection is slow, or when a website's server is busy.
But since you have no problems with opening the required URLs directly in IE, I daresay it's a bug in your IE that prevents you from opening web pages through shortcuts. Try running a clean uninstallation of IE using Windows Installer CleanUp Utility, then download and reinstall IE from here. This should fix the problem, keep me posted.

PS - It might be a better idea for you to simply bookmark the website links instead of saving their shortcuts on your desktop, it's easier for you to access them that way.

Regards

Edited by B. Rath on 10/4/2008 at 8:30 AM

413 days and 20 hours ago.

Reply

First I uninstalled the IE software updates. Then I downloaded the Cleanup Utility. IE does NOT appear on the list of programs in the utility.

 

The shortcuts now work. Appears that one of the updates caused the problem. There were about 10 of them dating from 1/07 to 8/08. My problem with the shortcuts started in the last week, however.

 

What do you suggest? Will Windows Update give me the deleted updates? I could install them one by one, testing the shortcuts each time till I found the one that caused the problem.

 

Accepted Answer

Hi,

In this case, there are two things you can do:

1) Go to Start>Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs and then open the 'Add/Remove Windows components' present in the left side of the window. After that, deselect 'Internet Explorer' in the context menu and click 'Next'>'Finish. Then carry out a fresh installation of the latest version of Internet Explorer, it should carry most of the updates by default.

2) If you dont want to reinstall IE, then you can easily get the updates you had uninstalled, by going to 'Tools'>'Windows Update' in the IE browser window. Hopefully, your shortcuts should continue to work fine this way.

Keep me posted.

Regards

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Expert: B. Rath
Pos. Feedback: 98.5 %
Accepts: 
Answered: 10/5/2008

Computer Software Engineer

Qualified Software Developer and Support Specialist.

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