Solved Accelerator add-ons quit working

[grits]

This actually happened after the June updates, just didn't take time to post about it.
I used to be able to highlight a word & choose either Wikipedia (default) or a dictionary to read the meaning of it but it doesn't work anymore. Those 2 are still listed in my add-ons.
How can I find out what would have made the change?

 

[pbcopter]

Have you tried right clicking the word after you highlight it?

Which browser and/or word processor are you using?

 

[grits]

well I'll be! yes right clicking works & I probably even tried that but didn't look down far enough, just saw the 'Cut','Copy', etc. now I'm really

Thanx

 

[pbcopter]

You're welcome. I noticed that the Blue box for selecting Translate, etc. that came up in IE 10, stopped appearing after the last IE update. This behavior first appeared in IE 11.

 

[thenit]

After the August 12th updates, I cannot get accelerators to work at all. I noticed the accelerator "button" gone back in June and finally realized that if you highlighted the word and right-clicked, the option of choosing an accelerator appeared. Since my last update (which says it was only a security update), I only get the Cut, Copy, Select All, Paste, Print and Print Preview options when doing this. It's gone.

 

[pbcopter]

After the August 12th updates, I cannot get accelerators to work at all. I noticed the accelerator "button" gone back in June and finally realized that if you highlighted the word and right-clicked, the option of choosing an accelerator appeared. Since my last update (which says it was only a security update), I only get the Cut, Copy, Select All, Paste, Print and Print Preview options when doing this. It's gone.

I have not experienced that on any of my systems.

You could perform a system restore to a restore point before the updates were installed and then reinstall them one at a time to try and find the one that is creating the problem.

 

[thenit]

In the August 12th updates (14 in total), there was only one update for Internet Explorer (KB2976627). In the Microsoft Community Forums, a MS Engineer has already stated that there are known issues with the latest update and 3 subsequent updates have been issued (hotfixes?) but the one I am experiencing is not listed. I have asked the question there as well.

It's not just the accelerators that aren't an option, neither are my search providers.

 

[thenit]

I uninstalled KB2976627 (the August 12th IE security update) and everything works again. Don't recall uninstalling a Windows Update before and I didn't go smoothly. It said it needed to restart the computer and then it hung on the "Preparing to Configure Windows - Don't Turn Off Computer". After an hour I powered off (couple of times to stop "Resuming Windows") and when it booted, the reconfiguration occurred, successfully. I'll wait until a new IE (KB) update appears and ignore this one.

 

[thenit]

I uninstalled KB2976627 (the August 12th IE security update) and everything works again. Don't recall uninstalling a Windows Update before and I didn't go smoothly. It said it needed to restart the computer and then it hung on the "Preparing to Configure Windows - Don't Turn Off Computer". After an hour I powered off (couple of times to stop "Resuming Windows") and when it booted, the reconfiguration occurred, successfully. I'll wait until a new IE (KB) update appears and ignore this one.

Spoke too soon. I went to shutdown and it said "installing update 1 of 1" and then on reboot it started updating Windows and when it was up, it had reinstalled KB2976627! Not sure how to proceed now.

 

[thenit]

I uninstalled KB2976627 (the August 12th IE security update) and everything works again. Don't recall uninstalling a Windows Update before and I didn't go smoothly. It said it needed to restart the computer and then it hung on the "Preparing to Configure Windows - Don't Turn Off Computer". After an hour I powered off (couple of times to stop "Resuming Windows") and when it booted, the reconfiguration occurred, successfully. I'll wait until a new IE (KB) update appears and ignore this one.

Spoke too soon. I went to shutdown and it said "installing update 1 of 1" and then on reboot it started updating Windows and when it was up, it had reinstalled KB2976627! Not sure how to proceed now.

Sheesh... Did the uninstall again but this time turned off AV (not sure that this made a difference) and when it said it needed to restart, I chose to "restart later" and did the restart myself. It worked. I also realized that I had Windows Update set to automatically download and install and I had done a "check for updates" to see if KB2976627 showed up (to show it was uninstalled) but then it automatically installed it when I shut down. I changed the settings to let me decide when to download and install, at least until the new IE update is available. Didn't need to put this post but it may help someone in the future.

 

[CraiginNJ]

thenit -- Please clarify? Are you saying that if you disable your antivirus software while that particular buggy Windows update module installs it avoids disabling your right-click accelerators? (I assume that's not what you intended to say.)

 

[thenit]

thenit -- Please clarify? Are you saying that if you disable your antivirus software while that particular buggy Windows update module installs it avoids disabling your right-click accelerators? (I assume that's not what you intended to say.)

You are correct. The stopping of the AV software has absolutely nothing to do with the accelerator problem.

Uninstalling KB2976627 fixes the accelerator problem. There is something in the update that stops it from working like it did previously. I've hidden that update in Windows Update so it won't be reinstalled until a newer fix is released.

 

[CraiginNJ]

<groan>, here we go again. Now they've also broken menu accelerator shortcuts in "cumulative security update for internet explorer 11 for windows 8.1 for x64-based systems KB2977629 .

Can anyone confirm? Anyone find a workaround that lets the IE11 updates be installed without destroying accelerators?

 

[thenit]

I know that Craig has been trying to get MS to do something about this but every time a new IE "security" update is issued, it removes the accelerator function.

If this feature is being permanently removed (even though the MS website still explains how to use it), do any other browsers have this feature?

The way that I use it, for example, is when I am on my public library's website looking at books, CDs or DVDs. I will highlight the title, right-click and get a dropdown menu that includes various defined "accelerators". I have one defined for Amazon Books (and Goodreads) so that if I click on it, another window will open up in Amazon with suggested books so I can click on the appropriate book and obtain a review. I can then decide if I want to reserve the book. I have similar accelerators set up for CD's (All Music Guide) and DVD's (IMDB). You can also highlight addresses, right-click and have the address displayed on a Google Map.

I cannot believe that MS thinks that this feature is not worthy of keeping. It differentiates itself from other browsers. Unfortunately, because I want this feature, I am ignoring all IE updates because MS doesn't separate "security" updates from "functionality" updates and I'm becoming worried about security.

That being said, are there other browsers out there that have this feature besides (older) IE?

I am up to date on every piece of MS software (except IE 11), running on Windows 7 x64.

 

[IDontThinkSo]

For me, uninstalling Security Update for Windows 7 (KB2977292) did the trick today..

 

[thenit]

IDontThinkSo...
Are you sure it isn't KB2976627 that you uninstalled? I have KB2977292 installed on my system and IE accelerators still work since I haven't installed any IE updates since KB2976627. I am right up-to-date with all my Microsoft software except for the one's offered this week but the update you are referring to is a Windows 7 update from October, 2014.

 

[CraiginNJ]

As the discussion on Microsoft's web site showed, there were several Windows updates that caused the loss of right-click-on-highlighted-text accelerators.

I currently wonder if a workaround has been found though. I used to see this problem on both laptop and desktop, but when I allowed my desktop to load all the latest updates this past weekend they reset my browser's accelerators rather than disabling them -- I could re-install the ones important to me. So maybe at some point MS had an update that caused that reset in order to restore the functionality after other changes? I have not yet confirmed the problem seems address for my laptop yet, though -- waiting for a moment when I've done a full image backup before allowing that. (However, my history of hidden updates disappeared on my desktop without installing the accelerator-damaging updates I've been avoiding, but didn't on my laptop, so I'm not entirely sure what happened.)

 

[thenit]

CraigNJ... So you are now current on IE11 and Windows 8 (on your desktop) and the right-hand click now works? I'll have to try it again if that's the case. I'm not sure if it matters that I'm Windows 7 vs 8 so I'll do a backup first.

 

[IDontThinkSo]

thenit...
Yes I'm sure. I installed quite a lot of updates because I do it every three months or so, I went through this and other websites trying to see if I had installed any of the mentioned updates. I couldn't find KBKB2976627 so i uninstalled KB2977292, which did the trick for me.

 

[CraiginNJ]

CraigNJ... So you are now current on IE11 and Windows 8 (on your desktop) and the right-hand click now works? I'll have to try it again if that's the case. I'm not sure if it matters that I'm Windows 7 vs 8 so I'll do a backup first.

I always recommend doing an image backup before experimenting with this. One of the security updates that used to wipe out the right-click accelerators was irreversible, i.e., rolling back didn't restore accelerators. If it's fixed now via some forced reset of accelerators, it might be safe but I've only tried my letting everything update fully (all Win8 updates including all MSIE updates) on just the desktop, and for all we know something could be different there.

BTW, here's the discussion where you can see that there were a few Windows updates that all seemed to cause loss of right-click MSIE accelerators before. It was getting hard to keep dodging them.:
https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/fe...976627-break-disable-right-click-accelerators