Most IE Add-ons disabled/unavailable and enable buttons greyed out

[john265]

I have tried a few things mentioned in this forum and elsewhere to fix this problem as listed below. Running Win 7 Professional N, 64 bit, SP1, with all important updates installed.

IE11 (and now back at IE10) started telling me it needed flash (which was already installed). Repeated installs from Adobe site and still unable to show flash videos. Then noticed "Send to OneNote" option disappeared from command menu. Add-on manager showed "Send to OneNote" unavailable and nearly every other add-on disabled including all the Microsoft "Run without permission" ones like Silverlight, XML, etc. All had their Enable/Disable buttons greyed out. I uninstalled IE11 and reinstalled, I uninstalled back to IE10, I repaired Office 2010 Pro, used malwarebytes, Spybot, CCleaner and MS Safety Scanner. So far, nothing gained. "Enable third party browser extensions" is checked under Internet Options.

Strangely, I have the same problem on my laptop running IE 11, Win7 Professional, SP1, 32 bit.
Thinking back, I ran CCleaner when I first had the flash problems and maybe something was changed in the registry, but looking at the .reg backup files, I cannot see anything relevant.

Firefox and Flash working fine, but I need IE for some things. If anyone can shed any light on this, I would appreciate it.

John

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi and welcome to SevenForums,
What is your antivirus program ?
A few of them tent to block what they don't like with features of Internet explorer but wouldn't in other browsers,
Traditionally ie does not need flash player to play youtube videos,
Cheers.

 

[john265]

I'm using Avast Pro. I cannot see any settings specific to IE.

 

[ThrashZone]

Avast in the past has had issues with all new versions of Internet explorer,
It blocks what it also has security features for,
ie11 has many new features
Avast would be the common denominator between the two machines

 

[john265]

It's possible Avast could be causing it. I did check its settings and posted in the Avast forum but nothing useful yet. I also turned off its shields but no change to my problem.

 

[A Guy]

You can disable Avast shields to test

Right click icon in system tray> avast! shields control> Disable until computer is restarted



You can also boot to Safe Mode and Avast will not be running there. Choose Safe Mode with Networking if you want to actually connect to the internet while testing.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/69585-safe-mode.html

A Guy

 

[john265]

Update:
This doesn't appear to be a problem with my antivirus. I have rebooted in safe mode and still have the same problem. However, I then logged in as Administrator and all the IE add-ons were enabled (with the antivirus software running). Yet they are disabled with my own login (which has admin privileges) and when I choose to run iexplore.exe as administrator.
Any ideas?
John

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Standard accounts are easily made/ create another and test

 

[john265]

Good idea!
New standard user can enable/disable all the IE add-ons. So it's something to do with my current user name.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Thanks for the update,
Probably one of the best things about using a standard account disposable
With right click run as administrator there's really no reason to use a admin account all of the time

Some people believe having another admin account for a fail safe is a good idea too
I tend to agree
Cheers.

 

[john265]

Yes and thanks. What's the best way out of this? I want to keep ownership etc. There could be issues setting up as another user.

 

[john265]

Yes and thanks. I'm not sure what the best way out of this is. Setting up as another user could give me ownership and access issues on some things.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Depending on what you could put personal files in the public areas,
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/122666-permissions-allow-deny-users-groups.html
Or add this to your right click options,
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1911-take-ownership-shortcut.html

 

[A Guy]

From THE expert

Hello Scams,

About as close as you can get to this would be to create a new administrator account with the name you like, then copy all of the contents of the old user account's C:\Users\(user-name) folders (including hidden AppData folder) into the corresponding new account's C:\Users\(user-name) folder. After everything checks out ok, you can delete the old user account while logged in the new user account.

It will copy most of your settings, like your Start Menu shortcuts, to the new account, but items stored in the registry, like your desktop background, would have to be reset again.

Hope this helps some,
Shawn

http://www.sevenforums.com/performa...similar-existing-user-account.html#post984140

A Guy

 

[john265]

Thanks for your suggestion. I will try this when I have backed up and have some spare time.