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General discussion

Windows Vista

Aug 20, 2007 9:40AM PDT

Will not let me download Active X. When I try, it says Windows is blocking it. What should I do?

Thanks, Linda

Discussion is locked

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Check IE's settings...
Aug 21, 2007 11:52AM PDT
Firefox and other browsers do not support ActiveX for security reasons, but in Internet Explorer you can go Tools->Internet Options->Security. Medium High is the default setting, though you can click Custom Level to enable ActiveX and various scripts individually.

Hope this helps,
John
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I tried but....
Aug 21, 2007 10:06PM PDT

it still did not allow me to run Active X and I got all kinds of warnings that my computer was at Risk. The problem I am having is accessing a link on a webpage, an X comes up in place of the link. I thought it was Active X control. Am I right about that? Any other thoughts? Thanks for your help.

Linda

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Interesting...
Aug 22, 2007 12:05PM PDT

If it were ActiveX being blocked you would normally have been alerted by a yellow alert bar appearing at the top of the window and a friendly little 'bleep' sound to accompany the security alert. That alert can be disabled, but based on that, the settings checking out, and the link breaking it doesn't sound like ActiveX is behind it.

As to the 'X,' is it plain text, like this post, or is in an image of a red X in a small square box? If it's the latter I would be inclined to say it's an image being blocked or simply not loaded, which would normally link to another webpage or a download. Regardless, could you post the URL to a page where you are encountering this phenomenon? Checking out the webpage first-hand is often the best way to determine what problems could be arising from it.

John

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It is not the webpage
Aug 22, 2007 9:19PM PDT

The yellow warning banner does come up on the webpage saying that to help protect security, Internet Explorer stopped this site from installing Active X. When I click on it for options and go to Install Active X Control, a screen comes up saying Windows has blocked the software because it can't verify the publisher. The boxes on the website are links to other pages. I have 3 computers and this is a new computer with Vista and I just don't know how to get around this problem. Any other ideas?

Thanks, Linda

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Ah, in that case...
Aug 23, 2007 3:38AM PDT

The link being replaced by an X is odd, but regardless go Tools->Internet Options->Security->Custom Level and Prompt for "Download u8nsigned ActiveX Controls." If the problem persists after relaunching IE go back to the Security tab, disable Protected Mode (uncheck the box), and relaunch the browser.

Hope this helps,
John

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Sorry, not fixed
Aug 23, 2007 4:14AM PDT

When I checked download unsigned Active X controls and then went to the website, clicked on the Active X message, then it actually pretended it was installing Active X for each link that showed an X but when the installation did not appear to take place. It showed done on the bottom of the webpage but nothing changed. I had already disabled the protected mode couple days ago when I was looking through the security items. There are alot of different items that pertain to Active X in Security, should I enable them all and see what happens?

Linda

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Not advisable, but you can...
Aug 23, 2007 9:44AM PDT

Enabling everything places you at risk should you browse to a website with malicious code injected into it, so it's better to choose Prompt, if available. I'd love to be able to check it out for myself, though.

Also, if you have security software installed see if it has the ability to block ActiveX controls...McAfee and Norton in particular can be quite picky.

John

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A Suggestion...
Aug 23, 2007 9:46AM PDT

Please click on the link below and download the most recent version of Sun's Java:

Click on the link to Sun's Java below, then click on the ''Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 6u2'' download button. Follow the prompts, accept the license agreement, then download the full ''Windows Offline Installation'' file to your desktop,(about 15 MB), scan it with your antivirus (just to be sure it's clean). Once that's done, if you've already got a Sun Java version on the computer, (It appears like you may not though) open the Control Panel, double click on the ''Add/Remove Programs'' section, then uninstall all previous versions of the J2SE Java listed there. Once that's done, then install Java JRE 6u2 from the downloaded installer.

http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp

Once Java is installed, then access the Internet Explorer "Internet Options" settings, "Security" tab, "Internet" icon, "Custom Settings" and change the security level to "Medium", instead of "Medium-High".

Hope this helps.

Grif

Hope this helps.

Grif

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Grif to the Rescue AGAIN
Aug 24, 2007 10:12PM PDT

Thank you very much, glad to see you are still out there helping damsels in distress. After downloading Java, I did not even have to change the secuirty settings to Medium.

Thank you again very much!!!

Linda

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You And John Did Most Of The Work...
Aug 26, 2007 2:03PM PDT

After eliminating most of the other options, there were only a few left.. That's what forums are all about.. Lots of folks working together to accomplish some good things.

Take care.

Grif