Internet Explorer 8.0: black toolbar bug

Workaround to IE8's black toolbar bug

Internet Explorer 8.0's toolbar for no apparent reason becomes black after some time. A probable solution is to format your hard drive and re-install Windows and everything else, ensuring a clean state, or if you have OEM, restore the factory settings (which will speed up your operating system like magic btw). But you don't want to do such of course, especially if you don't know the outcome or don't have the know-how and if you do not have spare hard disks to transfer your massive files to. So far there are no official fixes from Microsoft.

Below is a list of easy-to-do approaches which sadly doesn't work for most people. Though you may have better luck, so you may want to try any or a combination of them. Once the black bug is triggered it would be difficult to prevent it from recurring.

Just close and reopen IE8. Just Restart Windows. Do a System Restore. Uninstall then re-install IE8. Use Microsoft Fix it 50157. It can be found from the Microsoft Support site entitled, The menu bar and the toolbar are missing in Internet Explorer on Windows Vista or Windows XP or in Windows Explorer on Windows XP. It is a small tool which will automatically do the repair, or you can manually do it yourself by following the instructions there step-by-step. Hopefully it would solve the problem for you. Probably there are other related fixes which I haven't come upon yet.

Below is a list of possible workarounds which really works, however the glitch may reappear again in the future or immediately just after restarting Windows. Others are fortunate and the bug did not come out again. So when the bug manifests after opening IE8, close it first then do any of the following:

Switch users quickly by choosing your own login name. Or fully switch users by selecting a different login name and then back to your own. Just log off then back on. Easy! Change the Desktop theme to Windows Classic (looks similar to Windows 95, 98, 2000, Me). For most people this solved it. Of course you lose those eye-pleasing visual improvements over the old skin. If you're using the Classic one, then change it to the default Windows Theme.

You can also change your current theme (any theme) to a different one then revert right away. To save yourself some time, just save your current theme. So if the bug manifests when you open IE8, close it then load your saved theme. This way you don't have to manually switch themes, restart, or log on and off.

Now below is a method to automate the last workaround above. Thanks to the thread Is There a Silent Command-Line Operation to change theme? started by Misfortune on the Windows 7 Forums, where a fellow member named WindowsStar posted a sample VisualBasic Script (*.vbs) code there. From his example, I did a little editing to fit our need.

Open Notepad or any text editor, copy-paste the code below:

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") WshShell.Run "rundll32.exe %SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL %SystemRoot%\system32\desk.cpl desk,@Themes /Action:OpenTheme /file:""C:\mytheme.theme""" Wscript.Sleep 1600 WshShell.AppActivate("Desktop Properties") WshShell.Sendkeys "{ENTER}"

You must put the path where your saved theme file (*.theme) is found. On my example above, it is C:\mytheme.theme. After you are done, save your Notepad session to a file with a .vbs extension instead of .txt. Then create a shortcut to this vbs file. Place it into the Startup folder which is found in START menu, or just put the actual vbs file inside. So that it is automatically run when you log on or open Windows. When the script is executed, the Display Properties is opened for a brief time then closed.

Congratulations! Now it would seem there is no black bug anymore even though in reality there still is. I have tested the procedure myself and it works smoothly.

If we look at the vbs code above, it says some thing like: it runs Windows Scripting, to execute rundll32.exe, to open the Desktop Control Panel, to open a specific *.theme file, then finally closes by automatically pressing the Enter (aka Return) key. Indeed, something like that. Like a macro. I have little knowledge on scripts but I suppose Setup Information (*.inf) and JavaScript (*.js) can be used as well.

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I have noticed that for all those times I have used Windows together with my many favorite applications before, I have never encountered this black bug thing. But after I have installed many other/newer programs and/or Windows updates, meaning I tried to mess up my system, then such a bug appears. So if you are familiar with all your own favorite softwares and updates then you should stick with such a familiarized environment in order to prevent that nuisance from manifesting, don't install stuff and don't do things you don't really need at all.

Below are programs I have suspicions (ranking from highest to lowest):

Internet Explorer 8.0 MUI update editing TweakUI's Internet Explorer, Toolbar Background entry; or if you know how to do it manually. 3rd-party toolbars 3rd-party IE/Trident-based browsers

For Windows XP, if you have an English version of it, you don't really need to install a MUI update. If you have installed the Supplemental language support which supports the East Asian languages and those right-to-left ones, and you want to defeat those empty square boxes which appear on file names with unicode characters (specifically Korean), then use Tahoma as your file name font instead. In Display Properties, you change this by changing the Icon font. Thus you don't have to change as well the Regional and Language Options, Language for non-Unicode programs from its existing English.

For TweakUI, maybe its good to not change the settings of the entry of Internet Explorer, Toolbar Background. It is intended for IE 6.0 anyway. If you know how to do it manually, then don't.

For those third-party IE/Trident browsers, just don't install which are unfamiliar. In some cases, extension toolbars may also activate the bug.

You may have noticed, with the exception of TweakUI, all my suspicions above are directly involved with Internet Explorer. So perhaps its wise to stay away from third-party IE related add-ons and stuff, unless you have used them time and again and you have proven for yourself that they don't trigger the bug.

Again, the above are only my suspicions.

Due to frustrations, most people abandoned IE8 and resorted to other free web browsers especially the popular ones like Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari, and since IE 9.0 came out for Windows 7 and Vista anyway. Too bad, it seemed like Microsoft did not release a reliable patch on this bug and perhaps just fixed it instead for IE9 which itself is not compatible to older versions of Windows.