IE 7, ActiveX & browser add-ons

[VAsT]

I’m not sure where to post this problem, but having it exclusively on XP SP2 clients I decided to post it in this section. Behold this is going to be a long story  don’t know how else to put this. Don’t even know if this as all about one particular issue or a cascade of several combinations. It all starts with installing IE 7. This affects only restricted user accounts and Power users. Administrators do not suffer from this problem.

Well, I’m in a domain with server 2003 DC and 2003 Member servers we’ve got ISA running and accessing Internet over a local proxy server.

I’m not quite sure if this problem is Domain related; don’t really know where to look anymore.

IE 6 is running like a charm without any problems. When updating clients with IE 7 and after this is installed IE 7 no longer loads ActiveX controls like Shockwave Flash. The browser doesn’t show Flash content on websites.

Also clicking the Hyperlinks for downloading .pdf, .doc .rtf etc. does nothing if clicked to open. For the option “Save as” there comes a message telling “Website can’t be found, check url blabla”.

Looking in Internet Options under the “manage add-ons” all add-ons are present and enabled in the “allowed to use” and “add-ons which have been used by” section.

But in the currently loaded section most of them are missing.

Even setting all internet security option as low as possible has no affect and the problem persists.

We kind a rule out domain policies because this also occurs on client when logged on whit local user accounts, when domain policies are not loaded. All local policies are default and not configured.

The strangest thing is when we roll the client back to IE 6 by uninstalling IE 7 the problem whit downloading several extension and loading ActiveX controls and add-ons persists. This again makes me think it leaves behind some registry settings but can’t find anything strange at the most obvious places in current user registry internet settings.

Googling for these problems also doesn’t give me much more then change this and that in registry or reinstall the affected applications. Reinstalling the affected applications like flash player, adobe acrobat etc etc. doesn’t solve anything. I can find some similar issues with google but not in this combination with the browser add-ons and ActiveX controls.

The questions are:

This smells like a firewall problem but why does this only affect IE 7 and not IE 6 ?

Does ISA pick up and does it do something with the new enhanced security features from IE 7 ? And if so why only for restricted users and power users and not for Administrator. (Find this hard to believe but never know)

If it is permission thing regarding the ActiveX and add-ons failing to load. For what and where do we need to look and what to do to solve this problem?

I really hope somebody can hint me to the right direction or maybe give me the golden egg. I’m out of ideas for now and the only option at the time is “Not installing IE 7 ..

Thanks in advanced for taking the time reading this in the first place.

Edited June 13, 2007 by VAsT