Beware of IE7 if you use an HP printer

If you use HP Director to drive your HP printer, don't move up to IE7.
If you have already installed IE7, and have problems using HP Director, go back to IE6.
If you insist on having HP Director and IE7, search the web for a solution. Good luck.

I installed the recently released Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) on my computer as well as my wife's. Seemed to be working perfectly well initially.

But no. When she tried to open HP Director today to scan recipes from books, Director refused to work. No error or warning messages. Just nothing happened after the program icon was clicked. The exe file associated with Director was still there. In fact, Task Manager indicated that the exe file was running.

With my limited computer skills, I tried all I could to make it work again, including uninstalling then re-installing the HP software. All efforts were in vain.

Then I tried the last method I could think of, which was to go back to a previous system restore point. When I was choosing which date I would like to move back to, something dawned on me. The only significant thing I had done to her computer in recent days was the installation of IE7. I was not sure whether my suspicion was correct, but I decided to choose a restore point just prior to IE7 installation.

After system restore, the only visible change was the restoration of IE6. The I proceeded with re-installing the HP software. After several false moves (the renaming of certain HP folders and files as part of the system restore proved to be somewhat problematic), I managed to make Director work again!

Afterwards, I did a quick search on the web; it seemed that I was not the only victim:

PC World Forum
ZDNet Talkback
Tech Support Guy
Motherboard Point

So, beware of IE7, especially if you use an HP printer. I wouldn't want you to have the same anguish I suffered earlier today.