My comp has been messed up for a while. I can’t download from certain websites! If I go to a site that has SEPERATE downloading pages, it won’t work. For example, download.com. If I try from there, the link will take me to a new page, which will be blank except for a little icon in the upper left. It shows a circle, square and triangle. I think it is a Microsoft icon. I think that it is confusing downloads with media files or something! Plz help me! I am using IE 6. I went to another website for help, but they didnt listen to well. http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=5948 that is the link, if you want to check it out. Quicktime is no longer a problem as I tried to explain. It is the new icon I don’t get…
Thanks
What about other popus, do they draw blank? Try right-clicking on a link and opening in a new window does the page load properly?
Popups work fine 
I am not sure then…can you take a screen shot?
That “circle square and triangle” icon is called an “image download placeholder”. It means that Internet Explorer would like to put a web page’s graphics there but can’t, for some reason. So it puts a “placeholder” there instead.
You can see this effect by doing the following:
Click on Tools, up at the top here. Then Internet Options, then Advanced. Then scroll down to Multimedia, to where it says “Show Image Download Placeholders” and “Show Pictures”. If you check “Show Image Download Placeholders” and uncheck “Show Pictures”, then every time a web page has graphics, it will not load them but will instead give you that little “Circle square and triangle” icon where the graphics ought to be.
Anyway, to finish the change you can click on “Apply” and then Refresh this thread, for example. You’ll see the “circle square and triangle” instead of the big blue-and-gold Straight Dope logo and all the top icons for Search, Registration, Calendar, etc.
FWIW.
Thanks, for the info…but how do I make it download again?
Could it be that your file associations are buggered?
That is, your operating system has started thinking that anything ending with (presumably, knowing download.com) .zip is an image file (say a .jpg) and is trying to display it as an image.
Hence you get no download and an image placeholder (which indicates that the browser cannot display the file it thinks is an image, which wouldn’t be a surprise).
You can check by trying to open a zip file already on your hard disk. If that is the problem, open Windows Explorer. Go Tools > Folder Options > File Types. Scroll down to the .zip file type (if that’s what you’re having trouble downloading), click Edit (or Change, whatever the button is) and re-associated it with WinZip or whatever your unzip software is.
I can download some files. The problem is when they lie on a different page. You know, when you click on a download on CNET, it takes you to a NEW page. Some downloads, I can right click and save target as. But with these ones, it will only save the link to the new page. That is the problem, links that are to pages that initiate downloading.
Yes, that’s because you’re forcing it to download the file when you do the right click thing, so it ingores the suffix. Crusoe’s explanation is logical and probably right, have you tried what was suggested?
I checked that out. I’ve been using WinRAR, but I still have Winzip. Anyway, .zip was associated with the WinRAR archive, so that should work. I opened WinZIP and it prompted me to reassociate with it, so I did But I still get that placeholder when I try to download. This is so freaking stupid 
/em bump.
(Sorry, but I have not been able to download lotsa files for a LONG time, I may just reformat if I can’t find a solution)
Thanks
BUMP!! I’ve been in Thailand! (still am) I thought something might be up when I got access to the net… oh well