Internet Explorer has stopped working after closing tab or window and how to open IE maximized

Recently, I worked on the following two problems on a Vista machine with a recently updated Internet Explorer browser (from 8 to 9) that had two problems. One, when closing a tab or the Internet Explorer 9 window I would get the following popup message: Internet Explorer has stopped working. That wasn't an intermittent problem. It happened every single time a tab or the window closed. I couldn't blame the user for being annoyed by this. The other problem was when he clicked on the IE shortcut in the taskbar or on the desktop, IE would open in a tiny rectangle box instead of opening maximized.

First, how to fix the "internet explorer has stopped working" error.

Open Internet Explorer. Then click on the gear icon in the top right window to make the Tools menu appear. Then click on internet options to bring up the internet options menu. Click on the advanced tab and check the box under "accelerated graphics" called "use software rendering…" Make sure that is checked then click OK and reboot. After the reboot Internet Explorer worked correctly.

While the above solution worked for my situation, it doesn't fix every situation. You may have an IE startup process that is causing the problem too. In the past I've used autoruns, a handy tool, to find those nasty processes in IE startup and delete them, fixing not only the error after closing IE but also improving overall IE performance. Installing toolbars, addons, etc. often cripples your web browser's performance and can cause weird problems like the error message we focused on in this post. 

Now about the "maximize when opened" solution. There are different solutions for this problem. What worked for this situation I'll offer then I'll follow that with some other possible solutions. Open Internet Explorer and size the window to your liking. Then hold down the ctrl key while clicking the red “x” to close the program. This will set the IE window to open at this setting every time. To makes sure other links and such open the same way dick on the gear icon like you did earlier, click internet options,click "tabs", then select "always open pop-ups in a new tab." Click OK once then one more time in the previous window. I will also say this worked on a Vista machine. I don't know if that makes a difference or not. I do know this next method worked on Windows 7 machines but didn't work on this Vista machine. It's very simple. Open Internet Explorer then click and drag the window to the top of the monitor. It will be maximized. Close it then reopen it and the window should open maximized. That solution worked on a few Windows 7 machines in the past.

There's one more I'll detail below. Go the the desktop and right click on the desktop, click new, then shortcut. Create a short cut to "Program Files/Internet Explorer/iexplore.exe" Right click on the short cut and then select Properties. Click on the tab "Shortcut" and then change the value in the run command to "maximized". Click apply then OK. Now Internet Explorer will open in the maximized state when you click on any short cut to iexplore.exe.

So there you have it! If you have any questions comment below.

Try Everything Before You Quit - How to Reset Internet Explorer

No, this isn't a good philosophy for life, but it is a good philosophy for technology repair.

A client told me she was bringing in her mother's PC for me to fix. Her mom has att.yahoo as her homepage in Internet Explorer 8. Apparently, ATT at Yahoo! has changed the look and feel of their homepage (new code and stuff). Since that change, my client's mom can't access the att.yahoo page. She has the site set as her homepage in IE 8. When she starts IE 8, the infinity circle runs for 5+ minutes (she let it run without closing it out and she said only a tiny picture had loaded after 15 minutes). Well, my client brought in the PC for me to check out. I asked her if she had opened a new tab in IE 8 to try and access another site. She said, "No, I didn't try that." So, that was the first thing I did after booting into Windows.

I was able to open google and do a google search (I searched pizza if you're wondering). I was also able to open Yahoo!. From that, I knew IE 8 wasn't hijacked by a browser hijacker or something else. During the opening of other sites, att.yahoo was still trying to load. I closed the att.yahoo tab, then I installed Firefox, ran it, and was able to access att.yahoo just fine in Firefox. My assumption that IE 8 was "just old" and that att.yahoo's new homepage was too "advanced" for IE 8 was beginning to be a reality for me.

I told my client that Firefox loaded site just fine and that IE 9 probably would too. I asked her if she wanted me to update IE 8 to 9. She gave me the green light because she thought IE 9 would at least be more familiar to her mom than Firefox and I thought that was probably true. So, I installed IE 9. Guess what? IE 9 had trouble loading the new homepage too. What? Honestly, I was stumped. Another thought came to mind though. Perhaps IE was broken in some way? Maybe a reset would fix this issue? So that's what I did. I ran the IE reset. Guess what? Att.yahoo loaded just fine, even the same speed as Firefox. I don't know what specifically the problem was between IE and att.yahoo's new homepage, but I do know running the IE reset fixed the issue. I wonder if the IE reset in IE 8 would have fixed the issue for 8? That question ties in the title post that you should try everything before you quit on the technology you're working on. I should have tried the IE reset before upgrading to IE 9.

Want to know how to run the IE reset? These steps work for IE 7, 8, and 9.

In IE, go to Tools > Options

The Options windows opens. Click on Advanced. You should see a Reset button in the lower right portion of the window under a heading that reads, "Reset Internet Explorer Settings." Click on the Reset button.

In the Reset Internet Explorer Settings Dialog box, click on the Reset button.

After a little bit, IE will be return to the default state.