Here's a good tip that I thought was worth sharing: Neil from AppScout responds to a user's question about a message he gets when opening Internet Explorer 7: "Message from hook.dll. Can't create File Mapping."

Hook.dll? What the heck is that?

What the problem hints at is an issue with an Internet Explorer add-on, and one with a unimaginatively named system hook - hook.dll. Here's how to resolve:

Right-click the IE7 icon and choose "Start Without Add-ons." If the problem doesn't reoccur, then you know that it's related to some IE add-on. To figure out which one, reopen IE normally and choose "Manage Add-ons" from the "Tools" menu. Choose "Enable or Disable add-ons" and then disable all but one. Reopen IE. Still no issue? Keeping enabling add-ons one by one (restarting IE each time) to determine the culprit.

If you're on Vista, and you don't see the right-click option to "Start without Add-ons," then go to Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, click System Tools, and then click Internet Explorer (No Add-ons).

Guess who just joined the early adopters of Internet Explorer 8's new WebSlices feature? None other than the open-source, free encyclopedia site, Wikipedia. Thanks to Wikipedia user Soum Yasch and others, Wiki templates have been built to support the new IE8 WebSlices. You can see them in action on this page, which is the only one featuring them just yet.

If you hadn't heard, WebSlices are a new IE8 feature that let you subscirbe to content directly within a web page. You access them from your IE Favorites Bar, where you'll be able to click on them and see real-time rich internet content. (via)

In the new version of Internet Explorer, IE8 beta, managing your add-ons is now a lot easier. The new UI looks a lot more like a Windows File Explorer window or the Control Panel, with a list of Add-On Types on the left and Names & Descriptions on the right. From here, you can easily enable, disable, or remove add-ons using the buttons at the bottom right. Most of the changes will take place immediately, but a few (like disabling a toolbar) will require a browser restart.

The new Add-ons window also has new features like support for Ctrl + Click (or drag),  if you want to select multiple add-ons at once. Right-clicking on add-ons gives you context menus and the details about an add-on can be copied to the clipboard and pasted into a document or email.

I learned about these features and a lot more over on the IE blog, where developers can read about what IE8's new add-ons mean for them, too.

Are you running the beta of IE8? With all the new features, like WebSlices, Activities, and the new Favorites Bar, there is a lot to see and try. So, if you want to get your IE8 Beta up to speed with only the best of the new features, look no further - here are the best add-ons for IE8:

1. Me.dium's Activity for IE8: With the Me.dium Activity for IE8, you can right-click on a web page or highlight text and right-click, then choose "Discover with Me.dium." You'll then be recommended new pages around your selection based on what other Me.dium users are surfing right now, in real-time. (Stay tuned for a Me.dium WebSlice, coming soon)
2. Internet Buzz on StumbleUpon: This add-on is a WebSlice that shows you the hottest sites on StumbleUpon right now. To subscribe to a WebSlice, click on the purple icon and then click "Add." You can then click on the WebSlice on your Favorites bar and see a list of thumbnails and links to the currently "most Stumbled" web sites.
3. eBay Search Activity & WebSlice: OK, technically this is 2 add-ons, but each of these are great. The eBay Search Activity lets you highlight text on any web page and then hover over "eBay Search" to see active listings for that item. The eBay WebSlice lets you monitor your favorite eBay items and auctions from IE8's Favorites Bar.
4. Facebook WebSlice: To access this WebSlice, just log into Facebook and then click on the purple WebSlice icon on your Favorites Bar to see your Facebook friends status updates. (Vista users - if you have an issue with this, launch IE as an Administrator before adding the WebSlice). Pick up the "Share on Facebook" Activity on this page, too.
5. Mapping Activities: Why have just one mapping activity? From this page, you can get both the Live Search Maps and Yahoo! Local Maps Activities.
6. News: Get the MSNBC "Related News" Activity here and the "MSN Headline" WebSlice here.
7. Helpful Activities: There are Activities that help you Define, Translate, Blog, and Email.
8. ShareThis: the ShareThis browser button works with IE8, too. With this button, you can easily share web content on various services like Digg, Facebook, del.icio.us, facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon, etc.

Congrats also to bloggers Alex Lomas, Roman Clarkson, and Colin Walker who have already implemented WebSlices for their blogs! And also check out Andrew Nurses' Reports Module WebSlice.

The guys over at the IE Blog just put up a great post with all kinds of tips and tricks for learning the new IE8 Favorites Bar. They teach you how to use WebSlices and how to add feeds to the Favorites Bar, plus they list a whole bunch of other little tips and keyboard shortcuts. I highly recommend checking out this post if you're new to IE8.

Here's a sampling of the tips:

• To put focus on the first item on the Favorites bar, press ALT+B.
• Ctrl+Click or Middle-click on an item (or a folder) on the Favorites bar and this item (or the contents of this folder) will open in a new tab (or tabs) in the background.
• Ctrl+Shift+Click on an item on the Favorites bar will open up this item in a tab in the foreground.

They've actually been posting all kinds of stuff about IE8, so you can be an expert in no time!

Here are a few other great posts to check out on the IE Blog:

• Address Bar Improvements (like domain highlighting)
• Learn About Loosely Coupled IE
• Improved Developer Tools
• Activities and WebSlices

The Quero Toolbar is a navigation bar replacement for Internet Explorer that offers a built in ad-blocker. With Quero, you can customize the UI of IE, allowing you to resize, move or shorten your address bar again. Then integrated ad blocker stops unwanted Flash, banner, layer, Google, IntelliTXT, and pop-up ads. Other features let you highlight search terms on your pages, begin finding as you type, search or highlight any word by selecting and right-clicking it, and jump to URLs that aren't highlighted.

The latest version supports Vista's Aero theme (for Vista users) and lets you just use Quero as a button, instead of an entire address bar replacement.

An IE8 version is in progress if you are beta-testing the the new browser.

Otherwise, you can download Quero from the Quero homepage.

Now that the dev preview beta of Internet Explorer 8 is out, you may notice some bugs here and there, since it's still a beta (translation = not done yet!). But did you know that you can check to see if your bug has been reported yet? And if it hasn't, you can tell the IE8 team about it. On the IE Blog, they give you the details about how to read up on the current known issues and how to let them know about new ones. And here's how:

1. Read the IE8 Release notes - this is where you can check to see if this is a known issue.
2. Check the issues listed on Connect - if you find your issue there, rate it! This is how they know how many people find it important.
3. Found something new? You can visit the IE beta newsgroup - the IE guys will be monitoring this group for new issues and can file bug reports on your behalf.

Oh, and the Windows Live guys want you to know that if you find any problems between IE8 and any of the Windows Live Services, you can just comment on their blog. We're listening!

The very popular Internet Explorer add-on, IE7Pro, has just released a big update. The new IE7Pro 2 offers many new features, most notably, a download manager! The download manager displays your downloads in a separate window, similar to Firefox, but the IE7Pro 2 download manager also offers a "Pause" option to start and stop your downloads. The download manager stays in the system tray, and by default, is always running (although you can change this setting). Even if your browser is closed, the download manager will continue to download the files you requested. You can even pause your downloads, shut down your computer, then resume them next time you boot up and go online!

Other new features in the update are increased stability, 64-bit support, and the addition of a hotkey (CTRL+M) to minimize IE windows to tray icon. Of course, all of IE7 Pro's great features remain, which include Tabbed Browsing Management, Spell Check, Inline Search, Auto Fill Form, Super Drag Drop, Crash Recovery, Proxy Switcher, Mouse Gesture, Tab History Browser, Web Accelerator, User Agent Switcher, Webpage Capturer, AD Blocker, Flash Block, Greasemonkey like User Scripts platform, User Plug-ins, MiniDM, Google sponsored search and more.