Printing problem in IE8 - html instead of wysiwyg

I just recently started seeing this problem - bring up any webpage in IE8, then select print preview - all it shows is the raw html, not wysiwyg. The only way I found to resolve this is to go into Control Panel > Programs > Default Programs > Set program access and computer defaults, then select the Custom configuration and then click the "Internet Explorer" radio button and click "OK". When I select print preview in IE8 now, it shows the wysiwyg view of the webpage and prints correctly. The problem is - I have set the program access in control panel every time Windows7 starts. Every time I go into control panel to set the program access, it seems to reset it to "Use my current Web browser". Any ideas how to permanently fix this so I don't have to keep resetting?

The size is not the issue - If I don't set the default to Internet Explorer when I first start Windows7 and I select Print Preview of any webpage - All I see is pages and pages of nothing but raw html - the same thing you'd see if you were to right-click and selelct View Source. I ran across an article somewhere that said IE uses temporary files to print from and if the temporary file is associated with something like notepad instead of Internet Explorer, you get raw html source. I just don't know why the default keeps changing when I restart Windows7 - it's a pain to keep having to set the default.

Have you updated your malware protection and scanned lately ?? I remember a similar problem with default programs being reset, but it 's been too long ago to remember the details.

Scan your system for malware and see what you find.

Yes, I'm all up to date and no viruses, trojans, malware, etc. It seemed to start occurring when I upgraded to Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac (which is the host environment and then Win7 runs as a VM under that). I have a support issue open with them but thought I would shotgun this out just in case it's something else.

gshank said:

1)...Every time I go into control panel to set the program access, it seems to reset it to "Use my current Web browser".
2)Any ideas how to permanently fix this so I don't have to keep resetting?

1) I believe the answer to question #1 is that that is normal behavior for Default Programs in Win7/IE8. The default is still set correctly even though the interface goes back to "current".
2) While you can't change the way "...computer default" works, IE8 should work fine as the default for a long time or at least until you install some programs or updates that confuses it. That's why sometimes we may have to go back to reset the default.

Turns out the problem was due to the most recent upgrade of Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac (the host OS) - or more specifically the Parallels Tools that gets installed in Windows 7. The Parallels support people sent me a new Parallels Tools to install and once that was done, the issue was resolved.