For several years whenever I’ve browsed the internet I’ve used “Right Click-Open in new Tab” exclusively.
I’m really not sure what I did, but suddenly I’m not seeing the tabs I’ve opened spread out across the taskbar.
Instead I’m seeing arrowed options for “Tab list” and “Scroll tab list forward”.
It’s quite annoying. How do I change it back, so the various tabs appear at all times and are easily clickable?
I don’t have a short, easy answer for you here. About a month ago, I did …something… that broke tabs in IE, and after wasting about two hours with making sure this or that option was checked or not checked, and registry edits, I abandoned hope and uninstalled then re-installed IE.
Just be sure that you have another browser so you can get to Microsoft’s site to download it.
Have you enabled Quick Tabs? It’s under Internet Options - click the Settings button by Tabs.
Thanks for the advice.
When I click on Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs>Internet Explorer I am given no option to remove or uninstall, so that won’t work. Although I do recall rolling back a previous version of IE in that manner because I thought the new version was awful…
Good advice, but sadly it’s just not working for me.
I’d use Firefox, as I hear many people swear by it and laugh at those of us who still use IE, but whenever I try to use Firefox the text font is thin, spidery, and barely readable.
I’m going to try to overwrite IE without uninstalling first. Thanks again for your reply.
Just tried that. Thanks for answering.
Still getting the situation that only two tabs at most are actually visible at one time, with arrowed options to “Scroll tab list forward/back” showing up instead.
Hmmm, just restarted after downloading IE(8) again. The problem is persisting. Guess I’ll just have to start using Right Click>“Open Link in New Window” instead of Right Click>“Open in New Tab”.
Still kind of annoying, though. I think it initially happened because I was holding down both mouse buttons for an instant as I was moving the mouse over the taskbar. Or something like that. Who knows?
Anyway, thanks for your replies.
I think I just fixed it.
I right-clicked on the taskbar (the one that starts with favorites and includes the tabs involved) and unchecked “Favorites Bar”.
Sorry to bump the thread in this manner, but when I googled my problem this thread was the first result.
Perhaps someone else will google the problem in the future and come across this solution.
tl;dr Uncheck the “Favorites Bar” option on the taskbar where you’re expecting the tabs to show up.
Are you aware that (on most modern mice, with a scroll wheel) you can “middle click” (click down the scroll wheel) to get a link to open in a new tab? It may take a tiny bit of practice to learn to click the wheel without scrolling, but after that it is much easier than right-clicking and using the menu.
Incidentally, I am glad to hear that you have solved your problem, but I am puzzled by your solution. I find that it is perfectly possible to have both a tab bar and a favorites bar showing in IE.
I usually use Firefox anyway, mind you. You should be aware that, in all modern browsers, it is quite easy to customize what fonts are used by default.
Did this happen to you when Microsoft upgraded to IE9? I hated the thing so much, I downloaded Google Chrome and haven’t regretted it since.
That actually occurred to me, but since I always have it unchecked I didn’t mention it as I assumed yours was unchecked as well, and I would think that checking it would remove the problem rather than cause it.
I still think IE makes the customization less cryptic than Firefox.
Well, it hardly seriously cryptic in Firefox: Tools -> Options -> Content, and then select the default font you want from a drop down list.
I think the problem started when I accidentally was holding down both mouse buttons as I momentarily moused over the taskbar. In some unknown way this apparently checked the “Favorites Bar” option… Unchecking it has fixed the problem completely.
No, I wasn’t aware of that middle-click option. It’s something I’ll explore. Thank you.
And I have indeed gone through the font options on Firefox. I get the selected font, yes, but it’s always a weak and thin version of the font that makes speedy reading harder than necessary. My experience of Firefox, even after several hours fiddling with font options, is that it’s like trying to read a book that has been printed with poor ink that hasn’t really taken root on the pages.
ie I suspect that a Sans Serif font, for example, in Firefox would look different on your PC than it does on mine. On my PC everything in Firefox is thin and barely legible.
I’m still using Windows XP, and thus can’t actually use IE9.
Again, thanks for all the responses.
That’s really abnormal. How about posting a screen cap somewhere?
That does absolutely nothing to over-ride the custom font sizes on web pages (for example, changing font sizes on this site to 40 still gives you tiny font—not that I would need something that size but just to prove a point*). With IE you can do so and they are direct about it. If FF has a way to do so it is well hidden.
*and over-riding font sizes on a MB is a good thing when someone thinks they are cute and posts in size 72
Aha!
I bet you are using a flat screen LCD monitor and do not have ClearType turned on. ClearType is a Microsoft technology first introduced in Windows XP that greatly improves how most fonts display on most LDC monitors, but it is turned off by default in XP (because, when XP first arrived, most people were still using CRT monitors, and on them ClearType makes the fonts look worse). I am guessing that recent versions of IE for windows turn it on automatically within the IE browser. You need to turn it on for Windows as a whole. This will not only improve font display in Firefox, but also on your desktop and many other programs.
Here are a couple of Microsoft pages that provide alternate ways of turning on ClearType in XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306527
Cntrl+, dude. 
(Or cntrl- for smaller. Cntrl 0 to reset to default. Or go on the View menu and use Zoom. Not very well hidden.)
That doesn’t work as well as IE’s way does. And it doesn’t change all fonts to the same size, just makes small and large ones larger/smaller (IE has the exact same controls as well, plus a mouse way to do so if you are lazy and don’t want to use the keyboard short-cuts).
Actually, I just looked at the new FF and the CTRL “trick” seems to work differently than before (I now have V12, and was using V3something the last time I did experiments on this). Anyway, I’m used to the security features in IE (even the hidden ones that I tweaked) and not so comfortable with FF, so I’ll only use FF if IE doesn’t work. Plus, I don’t like the menu layout of FF.
Too late to edit, but I turned cleartype off in IE (but have it on in Windows) as i can’t stand it in IE.
Good day to everyone and thank you so much. This thread was able to help me with my problem. I also had the same problem as that of Molesworth 2 as I also did what he did. 
Thanks again.