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I have a computer lab with 18 identical Windows XP machines, of which one will not load gmail on IE8. I've tested this both with "normal" gmail and several Google Apps accounts.

What happens is that it stops on the "Loading" screen and just sits there. I've let it go for over a minute and nothing ever changes. The progress bar on the page shows but is completely empty.

Javascript is enabled, I checked for bad add-ons, compatibility view is enabled and Windows is fully up to date, and I've completey deleted all cached items and cookies. We even re-moved on re-installed IE8 altogether with no luck. Reloading the page does not help, and using https does not help. IE8 does not report any javascript errors.

I can load GMail from Safari; it's just IE8 that has the problem. I can load up the plain-HTML version of GMail.

Any ideas?

Update:
I've also tried adding it to the trusted sites list, but that didn't help either.

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I considered asking this on WebApps Stackexchange instead, but ultimately thought it more appropriate for superuser because the final fix will involve some change to this machine rather than doing something on the web site. – Joel Coehoorn Sep 17 '10 at 16:57
Also: I did see this other question: superuser.com/questions/39752/gmail-does-not-load-on-ie8 However, I don't believe it's a duplicate because my symptoms are slightly different (reloading doesn't help and I never see the "Use HTML" prompt). Anyway, the other question stagnated and no solution was ever found. – Joel Coehoorn Sep 17 '10 at 16:57
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I have had a similar issue. Check to see if you have extra iexplore.exe processes in the task mgr and kill them. – JNK Sep 17 '10 at 17:00
@JNK - I'll look, but it's doubtful. This behavior has survived through several reboots and on several different accounts. You should add that as an answer, too. – Joel Coehoorn Sep 17 '10 at 17:01
I'll add it if it works :) I try not to add answers unless I have a high degree of confidence – JNK Sep 17 '10 at 17:02
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2 Answers

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Do you have some kind of build process or imaging for those 18 stations? Or do you manually load them with XP? If you have a process in place I would put a fresh image on the one and see if that helps. If you don't have a process download Clonezilla, make an image of one of the systems that works, and then load that image on the one that doesn't. See if that helps.

Its probably quicker to reload an image where you know it would work then to track down the nefarious process or application that blocking access to gmail.

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Restoring this practice is on my todo list, but we don't currently have any imaging process. We did at one time, but it was allowed to slide. – Joel Coehoorn Sep 18 '10 at 2:36
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I found the answer with help from this Stack Overflow question:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1794189/ie8-javascript-not-running-or-loading

To fix it: Start > Run... In the Run box, type in (without quotes) "regsvr32 jscript.dll" You should receive a popup says that it registration succeeded.

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