Last week's update for Internet Explorer has tripped up users testing an early pre-release version of IE7. Microsoft has traced back "scattered reports of odd browser behaviour" to a common cause of running IE7 Beta1 alongside IE6.

When users updated IE6 last week programming conflicts meant the browser was liable to crash, fails to display the contents of web pages when following hyperlinks or else throw up multiple windows for no good reason. Microsoft's solution is to delete a specific registry key as explained in a posting on Microsoft's official Internet Explorer Weblog here.

IE7 Beta1 is only available either to Windows Vista beta testers or as a download for Windows XP. The vast majority of users would not have been hit by the glitch. A second beta version of IE7 is due by the end of Q1 2006. Last week's IE update addressed four security vulnerabilities including one that was the subject of active hacking attacks. ®