# Javascript doesn't work - WIN XP Home - Why/How to Fix
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 4, 2005, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988 "2005-07-04T05:09:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@itanitme\_32301](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/itanitme_32301)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2005, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988/1 "2005-07-04T05:09:12Z")
Hi -
For some obsure (at least to me), everytime I try to bring up Javascript window, I get a completely blank (white screen) and the little note at the bottom of the window reads “Done”.
I am on an amd athlon, XP Home SP2.
Why is it doing this, and how to I fix it?
It is driving me nuts - sometime I can cut and paste the URL from the blank window, and bring it up, mostly, I can’t.
Please note that this is the latest of 13 PCs that I have built - I generally get along nicely, but this one’s stumped me.
TIA
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### Author:  [@Liz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liz)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2005, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988/2 "2005-07-04T06:52:06Z")
XP and Java are notorious for not getting along.
Try downloading the updated version of Java over at the official website: [http://java.sun.com/](http://java.sun.com/)
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### Author:  [@Arwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arwin)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2005, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988/3 "2005-07-04T07:46:58Z")
> [@chatelaine](#):
>
> XP and Java are notorious for not getting along.
>
> Try downloading the updated version of Java over at the official website: [http://java.sun.com/](http://java.sun.com/)
Not so much notorious for not getting along as that XP doesn’t come with it standard since Sun managed to sue Microsoft for it. So you’ll have to install java yourself, on XP, always.
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### Author:  [@Liz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liz)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2005, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988/4 "2005-07-04T07:48:10Z")
There’s that, too!
Java always gives me hell on XP for some reason. Could be a solitary experience, though.
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### Author:  [@itanitme\_32301](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/itanitme_32301)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2005, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988/5 "2005-07-04T08:48:13Z")
> [@chatelaine](#):
>
> XP and Java are notorious for not getting along.
>
> Try downloading the updated version of Java over at the official website: [http://java.sun.com/](http://java.sun.com/)
Java (and J2EE) I have, they work fine.
Javascript, despite the name, is NOT Java - it is an entirely different critter - I don’t know who/where/when it originated, but it is, IIRC, NOT Sun (from whom I’ve download a whole buch of stuff.
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### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2005, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988/6 "2005-07-04T08:54:41Z")
JavaScript was named entirely for marketing reasons: Java was taking off and Netscape, the people behind JavaScript, hoped to catch some of the buzz. There is no connection and the languages are, in fact, _extremely_ different.
[JavaScript, The World’s Most Misunderstood Programming Language](http://www.crockford.com/javascript/javascript.html) – A very interesting essay by Douglas Crockford that makes the case that most of the charges leveled against JavaScript aren’t actually the language’s fault.
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### Author:  [@Arwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arwin)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2005, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988/7 "2005-07-04T09:27:47Z")
> [@Derleth](#):
>
> JavaScript was named entirely for marketing reasons: Java was taking off and Netscape, the people behind JavaScript, hoped to catch some of the buzz. There is no connection and the languages are, in fact, _extremely_ different.
>
> [JavaScript, The World’s Most Misunderstood Programming Language](http://www.crockford.com/javascript/javascript.html) – A very interesting essay by Douglas Crockford that makes the case that most of the charges leveled against JavaScript aren’t actually the language’s fault.
No connection is overstating it a little. The way I understand it, Sun currently ‘owns’ the language and collaborated with Netscape in 1995 to create it.
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### Author:  [@ticker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ticker)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2005, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988/8 "2005-07-04T11:09:40Z")
> [@Arwin](#):
>
> No connection is overstating it a little. The way I understand it, Sun currently ‘owns’ the language and collaborated with Netscape in 1995 to create it.
Not true on both counts. Java is a product of Sun Microsystems, Javascript has no Sun connection at all and standardization efforts are controlled by ECMA.
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### Author:  [@Arwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arwin)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2005, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988/9 "2005-07-04T11:17:58Z")
> [@ticker](#):
>
> Not true on both counts. Java is a product of Sun Microsystems, Javascript has no Sun connection at all and standardization efforts are controlled by ECMA.
I should have checked my facts batter. You’re right, sorry.
[http://www.mozilla.org/js/](http://www.mozilla.org/js/)
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### Author:  [@Arwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arwin)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2005, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988/10 "2005-07-04T11:21:56Z")
> [@Arwin](#):
>
> I should have checked my facts batter. You’re right, sorry.
>
> [http://www.mozilla.org/js/](http://www.mozilla.org/js/)
(and although batter sounds pretty nice in that sentence, I did in fact mean better … :o )
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### Author:  [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2005, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988/11 "2005-07-04T12:56:37Z")
Trying to get back to the question, where are you trying to run javascript? What are you trying to do with it??
One thing that pops to mind is that IE with windows XP2 is by default (for some reason) EXTREMELY picky about what you can do with any web page opened from the hard drive or CDs – the default is ‘no active content allowed’, which would presumably rule out javascript running.
Why exactly they’ve ruled that people should be more careful with local content on their computer than with pages that are out on the web and have who-knows-what kind of scripts running… I couldn’t tell you.
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### Author:  [@itanitme\_32301](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/itanitme_32301)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2005, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988/12 "2005-07-04T17:39:25Z")
> [@chrisk](#):
>
> Trying to get back to the question, where are you trying to run javascript? What are you trying to do with it??
>
> One thing that pops to mind is that IE with windows XP2 is by default (for some reason) EXTREMELY picky about what you can do with any web page opened from the hard drive or CDs – the default is ‘no active content allowed’, which would presumably rule out javascript running.
>
> Why exactly they’ve ruled that people should be more careful with local content on their computer than with pages that are out on the web and have who-knows-what kind of scripts running… I couldn’t tell you.
I’m just clicking on links on web pages - I expect to see something (product details, video clips, ordering options, etc.) - but all I get is the originally-described white (empty) page. This occurs under both IE 6.x and Mozilla (whatever).
I have set the options/preferences as indicated on several pages, rebooted a few hundred time since than, and still no javascript content displays.
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### Author:  [@fubbleskag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fubbleskag)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2005, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988/13 "2005-07-04T17:56:56Z")
when this happens are you getting the blank page in a new window, or the original window? if it’s the original window, can you copy/paste the new link info from the location bar for us?
can you give us a specific example of a page & link that isn’t working?
can you upload a screenshot?
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### Author:  [@itanitme\_32301](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/itanitme_32301)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2005, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988/14 "2005-07-04T19:03:56Z")
Well, XP Home doesn’t play well with “Print to file”, so I’ll start this over.
New window, all white - No content, nothing to c&p - the Print Scrn button does nothing, and nothing can be selected.
From:
[http://kragen.inserts2online.com/pageLarge.jsp?pageNumber=1&drpStoreID=419&](http://kragen.inserts2online.com/pageLarge.jsp?pageNumber=1&drpStoreID=419&)
I click any product, and I get a shiny new blank window, in one case the address bar contains:
javascript:openBreakout(“breakoutWin”,“breakout.jsp?pageNumber=1&breakout=b14678\_23.jpg&”,400,204,false)
Any ideas?
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### Author:  [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2005, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988/15 "2005-07-05T00:07:46Z")
If I’m not mistaken…This board runs on javascript.
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### Author:  [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2005, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988/16 "2005-07-05T11:43:04Z")
The fact that all the pages end in “.php” suggests to me that it in fact runs on PHP 🙂
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### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2005, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/javascript-doesnt-work-win-xp-home-why-how-to-fix/310988/17 "2005-07-05T17:29:19Z")
> [@Reeder](#):
>
> If I’m not mistaken…This board runs on javascript.
No, this board runs on PHP (as **Usram** points out) which is entirely _server-side_, as opposed to JavaScript which is entirely _client-side_.
That is, no PHP code is ever sent to the browsers, not least because browsers don’t usually ship with PHP interpreters. JavaScript, on the other hand, is sent out packaged inside the webpage and it’s up to the browser to do something with it.
There are some ways to blur the lines between client-side and server-side, but the client-side portion of [AJAX](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX), for example, is JavaScript.