Here is one problem I have been unable to solve at work, its driving nuts and after 2 days still have no solution.

Normally when browsing a website that has a link to a word document, clicking the word document opens word inside IE either in a new window or the same one, with the attachment loaded.

Now the problem.

User clicks on the document link, a new browser window opens, along the bottom you can see it opening the url of the attachment. Now once the attachment has downloaded the IE window just closes without any intervention.

Anyone else seen this, and found a cure.

The pc was installed about 2 weeks ago, and as far as I know hasnt been right since but they failed to log a support call. I have checked the IE popup blocker and its off, and no strange programs are listed in add/remove programs to block popups.

OS is XP SP2 with all the current updates installed. The PC is part of our WSUS GPO so gets updated automatically without user intervention.

This is not exactly what you're after but it might be a short term fix while you find the actual cause.

This is a LINK to a word document on my website that tells you how to force Word docs to open in Word when online.

Thanks Neil, I'll try that and see what happens. If I get no joy then I am going to try an uninstall/reinstall of Office. I have already tried the repair option but it made no difference.

Right, I have uninstalled office, reinstalled it from scratch and made the change suggested by Neil and it still doesnt work.

Any more ideas.

Just a thought, something to do with the .doc file type in Windows Explorer? Had something similar with PDFs a while ago on a XP machine. Deleting the PDF extension, then double clicking on a PDF and choosing Acrobat sorted the IE problem out.

Windows Explorer | Tools | File Types tab and remove the .doc extension.

Or maybe it's the 'close window after download' option that you get when you use IE to download a file? Maybe this is set for .doc?

Good luck!

Tried that, still the same.

In Internet Options -> Security tab, is Active X enabled (I think that's what IE uses to open Doc's but I can't remember)? and are File Downloads enabled?

I'm a bit rusty when it comes to IE as we don't really use it much anymore, but if the Security Level for the zone is set to Custom then it's always worth checking the settings in it.

Is it just Doc's that don't open properly or is it all files (PDF's perhaps)?

I know the problem is at least with DOC files, have not tried PDF's although the Acrobat addin is listed as a plugin. I'll check the active X settings tomorrow.

Well, I set the IE security settings to low and checked active X. All set to enabled and still no go.