Hello all Microsoft addicts;

I’ve heard of some new changes that have been made to Internet Explorer.  I
can probably guess that right after these changes underwent, was also the
reason for my not being able to view some websites to their fullest effects.  

How can I stop these bothersome occurrences and revert back to when IE
worked without a problem?
- Every time I go online and open a new window I am bombarded with an IE
prompt: e.g.  Do you want to allow ActiveX controls to run on this page?
Yes/No (depending on what I do in the ActiveX Controls and Plug-Ins section
within Internet Properties >> Security, these prompts may vary).  Even when I
choose to activate the controls from the prompt, I get no results.  

- Whenever I arrive at a page that contains ActiveX run content, I receive a
message on the page suggesting that I should download Flash Player from
Adobe.com (again, when I select to allow ActiveX controls from the IE 7.0
prompt, I still can’t see the intended content on the page.  

- I’ve tried downloading Flash Player NUMEROUS times, whenever I click on
the yellow button to download it, nothing happens, no progression lines or
security prompts show up.  (I have Shockwave from Adobe, which I thought
would help, but it didn’t)

- I upgraded to IE 7.0 from 6.0 a few weeks ago, but this upgrade did not
make matters better in terms of getting ActiveX to work throughout the Web
without any prompts to download Flash Player.  Even before I uninstalled
Flash Player, the same issues were present.  I currently have Adobe Flash
Player Plug-in (not sure what this is).  

- I’ve downloaded and extracted Adobes’ Flash Player through Mozilla, but
the program does not show up in the Add/Remove Programs list in my PC’s
Control Panel.    

- I’ve also had issues where I try to work online (i.e. taking surveys) and
I receive a message from the page saying that my cookies are not enabled.  I
have not done anything to cookies registry or whatever that is.  How can I
get my cookies to work in IE?  

I have: IE 7.0; Windows XP Home SP2; Intel(R) Celeron(R) 2.80GHz; 504 MB
RAM; Adobe Shockwave Player 11...One more thing, I can't access IE unless a
link summons it because when I upgraded it from Microsoft.com there was no
shortcut provided on the desktop.  

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.