IE engine not working

[mbrazil]

I'm on build 7. I've been using the firefox engine for almost everything, but I set all Microsoft sites (*.microsoft) to open with IE8 Standards. Today, when I tried to open a Microsoft site (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/default.aspx), I found that the site never loaded. The URL appears in the tab button and in the address bar, but when the tab is selected, the page remains blank. This is true of all Microsoft URLs.

I tried setting both IE8 Standards and IE Compatible as the default engine, and restarted Avant each time. I found that no sites at all load with IE8 Standards or IE Compatible set as the default engine. I can open all sites normally (including Microsoft's) in IE8 (using the full IE8 browser), and I can open all sites using the firefox engine in Avant (of course, I cannot use the Microsoft Update site with the firefox engine, but it still loads).

With Avant running (and the IE8 browser not running), and a tab "open" with a Microsoft URL specified, there are no xbrowser, ybrowser, or zbrowser processes running on the PC, so apparently, the Trident engine is never actually starts.

One time, while I had a tab open with a Microsoft URL (but with a blank page showing), I tried starting xbrowser.exe manually, and the page did load properly, but I haven't been able to repeat this. Also, since I have a sound configured in Windows for whenever a new process starts, I know that xbrowser is not starting when I open a tab that should use the IE engine, because there is no sound when the tab opens, as there normally is. I have confirmed this by monitoring Task Manager while opening a tab with a Microsoft URL.

I haven't tried reinstalling Avant build 7 yet, and I'd rather not if I don't have to. I've made no other changes to my system since the last time that I was able to successfully load pages with the IE engine.

[mbrazil]

This may have been a false alarm. It's working properly again after a reboot.