There appears to be an issue with one of updates included with last week’s Patch Tuesday security updates. The result is problems for users of IE 6 and IE 7 on both Windows XP and Windows Vista. It affects users with customized homepages.

According to Bill Drake over from Vista Community board:

When I installed the Patch Tuesday updates on my WXP Box with MSIE6 installed. I had the same problems with IE6 startup as others are mentioning in these newsgroups.

Specifically, about 60% of the time, I would get an “Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and must close” dialog. I dutifully reported the failure to Microsoft and then repeatedly tried reopening IE6 until it would successfully open.

Microsoft is currently investigating the problem. In the meantime, Bill offers the following tip:

For those experiencing this problem, please try moving to a blank opening page – and then reboot your machine again after the KB942615 update is installed. Once this is done, restore your default homepage.

Did you encounter this problem after Tuesday’s patches?