IE 11 Opens a Blank Page Under My Home Page On Startup.

voyager · 20 Sep 2017

A few weeks ago IE began opening a second page on start up.
I have Win7 x64, and IE Update version 11.0.31.

When I start IE, my search engine home page opens with a blank page opening under it.
It is happening every time I open IE.
It has become very irritating.

my suspicion is that some malware was installed, then caught by my AV and stopped or removed.
I can see no other reason for this to have begun happening.
I can find no malware on my PC now.

How can I stop IE from opening the extra browser page?

Ranger4 · 20 Sep 2017

Try opening Control Panel, select Internet Options, when that opens, select the General tab & see what is listed under Home Page. You may need to remove or change the opening page.

voyager · 21 Sep 2017

Thank you, sir.
The home page had " about:blank " appended to it.
Deleting that stopped the action.

voyager · 21 Sep 2017

I just had it open a duplicate page with the search engine home page instead of a blank page.
I went into internet options and deleted as duplicate search engine home page entry.
After a few restarts of IE, it has not done it again, yet.
But, I have the very strong feeling that it will do it again.
I'll get back if it does or it doesn't.
I'll try to see what sets it off.

Ranger4 · 21 Sep 2017

Thanks for getting back. Hopefully it has been fixed.

voyager · 21 Sep 2017

Now I'm getting a bit confused.
I just tried to open IE. It hangs on the "Waiting for ..." note on the tab.
Opera, Chrome and Pale Moon are all opening the home page with no problems.

I'm going to check on updates for my Win7 install and IE.
I'll get back after that.

EDIT:
After closing The browser, I get a "spinning circle" waiting cursor against the desktop.
Checking Task manager, System Idle is the only thing running at 95 to 99%.
There are 4 instances of iexplore.exe running.
IE is not running right now.
I'm going to shut them all down to see what happens.

Some satisfaction, I've got the arrow cursor back.
But, IE still hangs on the "Waiting for ..." tab.
I'm beginning to wonder if I might need to do a clean reinstall for Win7.
I haven't done one in a very long time.
Errors may be accumulating.
I did do a non destructive rebuild a few months ago.
I'll try the updates first.

Ranger4 · 21 Sep 2017

Keep us posted on what happens. Try the updates first & if that fails you could also try clearing IE history & cookies. Then if all those fail perhaps a fresh install might be worth doing.

torchwood · 22 Sep 2017

Hi Voyager,

a complete reinstall of W7 is not neccessary
IE11 is a feature.
You can "uninstall" it via programs/features turn features on/off. untick in features window
REBOOT

then turn it back on.

if that fails to clean up your issues then we can force uninstall it, see screenshot
your system will revert to your last version if IE

further reading here
Internet Explorer 11 - Uninstall in Windows 7 - Windows 7 Help Forums

Roy

voyager · 22 Sep 2017

Thanks guys.
I just did my Win7 updates.
I use WSUS Offline to do them.
It also updated IE to Update Version 11.0.46.
I'll run it for a while and see what happens.
If it's still buggy, then I'll try the IE uninstall/reinstall.
Everything I need to do that should be in the WSUS Offline package for my Win7.

Worse comes to worse, I can use the basic Win7 install image that I keep with all drivers, mobo aps, and maintenance utilities. Backing everything up and reinstalling the apps is the pain. It can take a day or two, sometimes more, to get done.

voyager · 23 Sep 2017

Still got problems with IE.
I've just found web pages that will not open with IE but will with the other browsers.
My feeling is that shouldn't be.
IE is supposedly the standard to which web pages are made to work to.
All other browsers are built to be compatible.

Well, when I get some time, I'll rip IE out and put a new one in.
Hopefully it'll work then.
If not, It'll be time to rip everything out and start all over again.