Replies

MrBrian wrote:

I agree that you might be having DOM storage issues in your computer’s Internet Explorer. You could test if it’s functioning by doing the test at http://dev-test.nemikor.com/web-storage/support-test/ on your computer’s Internet Explorer.

Thanks for the suggestion.

I ran the Web Storage Support Test then, following the advice of ‘anonymous’ – delete the key, reboot, check DOM storage enable in IE – ran it again.

Results (see screen captures) of the test were identical.

Tried loading the Microsoft support pages, but still no luck!

So where does that leave us?  Maybe it’s time to give up, and just use Firefox. 🙂

I don’t like giving up on a problem, but I’m sure all you kind contributors have given up enough of your time trying to solve this.

MrBrian wrote:

I don’t have any experience in this area but a Google search for “compare internet explorer settings two computers” (without quotes) gives multiple programs for doing a comparison.

I followed your wise advice and did a Google search for “compare internet explorer settings two computers” without the quotes, followed the first suggestion to “IE Compare – compare IE settings between 2 PCs” at – https://forum.sysinternals.com/ie-compare-compare-ie-settings-between-2-pcs_topic28562.html – and from there followed the link to IEDigest at – http://www.iedigest.com/.  Actually, it redirects to http://www.regente.de/IEDigest/, but seemed safe enough.

IEDigest sounded hopeful so I downloaded it, and strange as it may seem the download is from a Microsoft site at – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=51694.

Chose iedigest_NET4_195.exe, and it worked fine; no install needed, just run the executable.

That was the easy part, however.

The hard part, for me at least, has been trying to understand/make sense of, all the differences.

One difference which caught my eye, since we’ve discovered that DOM storage, in Firefox at least, is the culprit in preventing rendering of the Microsoft support pages, was:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\DOMStorage]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\DOMStorage\Total]
@=dword:00410dd9

The above keys are on my computer, but not my wifes.  This is despite the fact that “Enable DOM storage” is selected under Tools, Internet Options, Advanced on both our computers.

In addition, the keys are not in the “Win7_IE11 reference file” – discovered with the help of the abovementioned IEDigest.

So, I’m wondering if I should live dangerously and export the key and then delete it, then see what happens when I run IE11.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

AusJohn

Kirsty wrote:

Is it possible to export the IE settings to a file, and using a text editor (Notepad or similar) to read/compare? It seems it was doable, but it may no longer be.

Not quite what I’m after I’m afraid.  I need to export all the IE settings, not just Favorites etc.

However, it is doable using IEDigest; see my post to MrBrian regarding this.

AusJohn

1 user thanked author for this post.

Kirsty

MrBrian wrote:

You’re welcome :). Is one of the computers a laptop?

Unfortunately, no.  If it was it would have been a simple matter of placing it beside the desktop and doing a compare, but they’re both ‘fixed’ – more or less – desktop computers.

AusJohn

MrBrian wrote:

If your wife’s computer’s Internet Explorer renders the Microsoft support pages properly, you could check which settings differ from yours and then change your different settings to match your wife’s until hopefully the Microsoft support pages render properly.

Yes, I thought of doing that BUT I don’t know an easy way to get (save to a file) all the settings and then compare them.

If you have time and don’t mind, could you suggest a relatively easy (simple) way to compare settings on the two computers.  For example, are they held in one main registry key that I could export from both computers and then compare?

Thanks again for hanging in on this rather protracted thread; really appreciate your time and expertise.

AusJohn

MrBrian wrote:

I noticed that in your Firefox yq2z58th profile that preference dom.storage.enabled is set to false, which is not the default setting. I changed my Firefox preference dom.storage.enabled from true to false, then browsed a Microsoft support page. I got the same undesirable rendering as you did. I believe this setting is the cause of your Firefox issue. You can change this setting if you want by browsing about:config. Hat tip to satrow :).

Brilliant; changed the setting in Firefox and all’s good.

Hat tip to both satrow and MrBrian.

Just one lingering annoyance; DOM storage is enabled in my IE11 (see earlier post, above) so there is something still causing the undesirable rendering in it.

AusJohn

anonymous wrote:

I can’t emphasize this enough, please let Firefox reinstall version 57.0.4. It contains a security update against the Meltdown vulnerability that is currently being discussed on this site.

Thanks for the advice; much appreciated.

AusJohn

MrBrian wrote:

Address about:support in Firefox lists important changes from default settings.

I’m getting into more trouble than I can handle, I think.

After setting up – and testing – the new profile, which enabled me to see the Microsoft security pages, I closed Firefox (56.0.2).

BTW, one of the changes I had made to my default Firefox profile was to disable automatic updating.

I then started to use the profile manager to revert to my initial profile, but whilst doing so Firefox showed a message about installing/updating.  Anyway, the outcome was that I ended up with Firefox 57.0.4, which I didn’t (and don’t want).

Presumably what happened was that with the ‘new’ profile automatic updating hadn’t been disabled, so Firefox made the most of the opportunity while I was using it and updated for me.

Bottom line – I’ve uninstalled Firefox 57.0.4 and reinstalled 56.0.2 (for which I had a saved copy of the setup file).

All good – except for not being able to see the Microsoft pages – because I had a backup of my Firefox preferences.

Sorry this is dragging on, but I’m including any relevant information in case it’s of any interest/use to you when helping someone in the future.

To that end, attached are the two files saved using “about:support” that you suggested.

“Firefox 56.0.2 yq2z58th.default Trouble Shooting Info [06-Jan-2018].txt” was saved when using my default profile (which doesn’t allowing viewing Microsoft support pages).

“Firefox 56.0.2 ytwenhtd.MS-Support-Test Trouble Shooting Info [06-Jan-2018].txt” was saved when using my new profile (which allows viewing Microsoft support pages).

What’s next?  I’m unsure, because I’m having trouble interpreting lots of the entries in those two files.  What I might do is run Firefox with the new profile, disable automatic updating immediately, then just use that profile when I need to view Microsoft security pages.

Inconvenient, but it’s better than nothing.  Or use Opera Portable now that I’ve got it, because it worked OK.

 

MrBrian wrote:

Another question: Did you have a lot of tabs open when you had these issues in Firefox?

No.  The problem existed even with only one tab open.

AusJohn

MrBrian wrote:

You’re welcome :). Did you do a lot of customization in your older Firefox profile? If not, perhaps you could use the new profile and customize it to your liking.

A reasonable amount of customization.

Two thoughts –

either customize the new profile (as time permits), or

only use the new profile when I need to access Microsoft support pages (inconvenient, but a possibility if pressed).

AusJohn

MrBrian wrote:

I suggest to try creating a new Firefox profile for testing purposes, and use this new profile to check the rendering of a Microsoft support page.

Thanks, again! 🙂

Created a new profile in Firefox and voila!

The two troublesome Microsoft support pages (URLS above) load/show as expected.

It’s interesting (to me, at least) that the ‘no information/links’ page, that I’ve been seeing and which caused me to start this long thread, can be seen loading before the ‘proper/information’ page.

If you’ve had enough, then please don’t hesitate to say so because you’ve put a lot of time and effort into helping me to date, and I’m sure you have better things to do.

AusJohn

MrBrian wrote:

You’re welcome :). I haven’t used Opera in years. My purpose in suggesting that you try Opera Portable was to try to figure out if you’re having a system-wide issue or not. Could you try Firefox again to check that the Microsoft pages are working or not. If the answer is “not working,” I would suggest that you try those Microsoft pages in Firefox Safe Mode.

1. Checked Firefox again – Microsoft ‘support’ pages not working.  NOTE: Some Microsoft pages load as expected.

2. Checked Firefox in Safe Mode – Microsoft ‘support’ pages not working.

 

MrBrian wrote:

I didn’t see anything wrong in the Browser Console output. You could perhaps try using yet another browser (such as Opera Portable Edition) and tell us whether the Microsoft pages render ok or not.

Thanks for the suggestion.

I’ve downloaded, and installed, Opera Portable version 50.0.2762.45.

The good news, I suppose, is that I can now load the “problem” Microsoft web pages, such as:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/894199/software-update-services-and-windows-server-update-services-changes-in

and

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4054518

But that doesn’t answer the question “why can’t I load them in IE11 or Firefox?”.

Especially given, as I mentioned in response to satrow, that they load in IE11 and Firefox on my wife’s computer which is basically setup the same as mine.

Being an inquisitive type, ideally I would really like to have a ‘fix’ for the problem, rather than just a ‘workaround’.

Is there some way (simple if at all possible) that I can compare settings, likely to be causing the problem, between the two computers?

AusJohn

PS. If you’ve used Opera Portable, would you be able to tell me how to set Print defaults such as margins, and headers/footers.  I’ve only had a quick look, but haven’t been able to come up with anything helpful so far.

MrBrian wrote:

I’m assuming that page didn’t give the desired results either?

Correct.  Sorry about that; I was so pleased to be able to capture some output from the Browser Console that I forgot to mention that the page didn’t give the desired results.

The result was as shown in the screen capture attached to my initial post.

AusJohn

MrBrian wrote:

If you’re able, perhaps you could use Firefox’s Browser Console to tell us if both of the domains mentioned in my previous post are actually having content retrieved from.

Well, I’ve had a go at using the Firefox Browser Console and I’m more confused than ever. 🙂

Tried loading:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/894199/software-update-services-and-windows-server-update-services-changes-in

I’ve attached the output I saw in “Firefox Browser Console Output.txt” in case it’s of any interest/use to anyone.

AusJohn