The "Set Default Programs" control panel only gives me an option for "Internet Explorer". How do I fix it so it always opens IE9 32-bit? I can manually go and explicitly select the IE9 32-bit executable for each extension but that would take quite some time.

Any ideas?

@magicalclick: the 64 bit version shows a "64-bit Edition" after the version number. Nothing appears on the 32 bit one.

And to check 32-bit vs 64-bit, open Task Manager and look for "iexplore.exe". For 32-bit, it is "iexplore.exe *32", and for 64-bit it is just "iexplore.exe".

I first noticed there was a problem when the tabs appeared to the right of the address bar. I specifically set them to be below the address bar, but it seems that setting isn't propagated to the 64-bit version. So it is easy for me to tell when it is the 32-bit or 64-bit version.

Did anyone try to drag a shortcut to the desktop and launch IE9 from that? Because as I said when launched from the task bar, it is indeed the 32-bit version, but when launched from a desktop shortcut, it is the 64-bit version.

What I did was uninstall IE9, which reverted back to IE8. I then tried to open the shortcuts on my desktop, and noticed that there wasn't any application ascociated with the shortcut. Turns out the shortcut has a "website" extension as opposed to "html" or similar. IE8 doesn't understand "website" extensions.

So I re-installed IE9 and once again the links opened IE9 64-bit. I then went into the control panel to change file associations, found the "website" extension and simply re-selected Internet Explorer as the app to use. This time the links open IE9 32-bit.

Is this a bug in the IE9 installer, or just some weird glitch on my system? Not sure.

Sometimes when I open IE9 32-bit from the task bar, a notification bar pops up at the bottom asking whether I want to make IE9 my default browser. The first time I saw it, I thought something changed my default setting from IE9 to something else, so I clicked Yes. Then I found out that IE9 64-bit became my default browser.

I had to manually change the program ascociations for "*.website" to "Internet Explorer" (even though it was already set to that), which reset it back to IE9 32-bit.

28 seconds ago, Bobzilla wrote

I have Win 7 with both IE 8 (32-bit & 64-bit) installed. Will one install of the IE9 install both 32-bit and 64-bit in one process or will IE9 32-bit and 64-bit need to be installed in two seperate installs? 

My experience is that you will not be able to choose the 32-bit version at installation (it tells you that you must use the 64-bit version instead). The 64-bit installer will then install both the 32-bit and 64-bit version and will then set the 32-bit version as the default.

However, note the issue/bug I'm running into where it then afterwards wants to change the default to the 64-bit version. I can't believe I'm the only one running into this issue. My system is pretty typical, and I have not made any weird tweaks. I also don't even have any other browser installed.

When I drag a URL to the desktop, the shortcut always brings up the 32-bit version. I checked this on both a Windows 7 Pro machine and a Windows 7 Ultimate machine.

I checked the Internet Options ' Programs dialog, and it says "Internet Explorer (64-bit) cannot be the default browser". 

The 64-bit version shouldn't even be allowed to be the default.

What I would do is set a different browser (e.g. Chrome or FireFox) as default, and then set IE back as the default to see if that fixes the problem.

The solution that worked for me was to (i) rename the folder Internet Explorer under Program Files, (ii) run Internet Explorer from Program Files (x86) (iii) set IE as default.

A few days later I noticed that Windows Explorer would keep opening folders in a new window and by restoring the Internet Explorer folder name in Program Files the problem disappeared and IE9 32-bit is still the default browser