Yeah, this HP I'm using right now is going back to Sam's, anyway, as soon as the new Dell I just ordered comes... HP has BURNED ITS BRIDGES with me... after 35 months as a customer with first one, then two computers registered in their database and me ALMOST ordering a replacement for this defective piece of DISPLAYWARE I unfortunately walked out of Sam's Club with, I flaked out of the sale in the middle of the "Checkout" process the other night because I had a couple "issues" I couldn't resolve online (primarily a LONG buildtime I couldn't understand) -- at which point their system popped up a little window asking if I was having a problem I couldn't resolve online and would like someone to call me, and if so, to leave my first and last name, and a phone number and click continue, which I did... then I made sure my "cart" was saved so I wouldn't lose the configuration I had set up, as it takes a few minutes to get one like you want it if you don't just want a stock system (and if I wanted that I'd buy the cheap junk they sell pre-built, like what I'm taking back, lol)... and then I closed the HP window and went about my business... When I hadn't had a call from HP by Monday night (that was Sunday night), I logged on last night to see what was going on, and it showed my cart was EMPTY (of course NAV ran in the interim, so my cookies probably got cleaned, but I DID have an account using my email address and a password, for like 3 years now), so I tried logging on, and my password didn't work... Well I have a few different ones, so I figured maybe I FORGOT which one I was using with HP, so I clicked the "forgot my password" link and plugged in my email address and they HAVE NO RECORD of my email address... So I called them up and talked to one of their sales people, and he searched the computer, and they have NO RECORD OF MY EMAIL ADDRESS, NAME, OR PHONE NUMBER (the primary ways they would have me referenced), which means they likely don't even have my current computer and monitor (the ones that are going back to Sam's and still have 10 months fo warranty left -- supposedly) in their database with my name on them any more. Well, THAT DID IT -- Dell got the sale... But now it's been more than 24 hours since I closed THAT sale, and although I immediately got an automatic email from THEM "acknowledging" the order, I've yet to get the "order confirmation" email, with the "order number" and my "customer number," etc. I just KNOW you folks didn't care about all this jazz, but I'm just SO freakin' frazzled and frustrated with these #$%^&* computer companies right now I could EAT A BULLFROG!!! :-P Somebody PLEASE "pass me a Coke and a smile" or SOMETHING! :) At any rate, with this HP Media Center that's going back to Sam's (not ONE, but TWO defective CD drives, and a cordless mouse that eats batteries like CHEESE), the FIRST THING I did when I got it was create the System Restore disks and Restore it to factory condition (considering it had been a display model for like 8 months, I thought that was QUITE PRUDENT, huh?)... So that's happening AGAIN before it goes back to Sam's, so they don't get anything I paid for, lol, and in the case I.E. 7 DID cause any problems, they'll all go bye-bye... And I'm guessing if this new Dell system EVER DOES "confirm" and ship, it'll COME with I.E. 7, so I really won't have to worry about it, since I really won't have a choice, lol. Ummmmmmmmm, anyone wanna give me a ride to the funny farm so I don't have to leave the car there? :-P

Thanks for all the help, everyone. I'll tackle this next week. And Genes, I leave the auto-update on because it really is very convenient. I'm not sure this problem had anything to do with that because they have been begging me to download IE7 for months--but they never did it without my permission before. I still have not installed it or decided to. Just don't want any headaches I can't fix.

I solved the problem, but only by uninstalling IE7, checking settings in the restored IE6 (they were all set to Custom), was able to restore IE6 settings to default because the choice was still there. Then, I downloaded IE7 again and installed, and now all is well. I had Googled my problem, but none of the sites I found addressed the particular problem I was having. This took quite a while, but I'm thinking something must have been amiss with either the original installation of IE7 or one of the later updates. Yes, Mikie, I do have adminstrator rights, but none of the "easy" things would fix it. This is on my laptop, and I checked my desktop and everything was as it should be, with sliders and all. At least, "ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL".

All's well that ends well. I thought v6.0 was the first version compliant with the federal anti-trust law suit agreement that IE could be removed sucessfully from Windows. Again dusting off an old brain cell or two, wasn't it at this time the creation of the Microsoft update site came into existence as an alternative to the on-board Windows update utility configured through IE? This of course being done so users could update Windows without being mandated to retain IE. DA