An Administrator vs. User Security Issue?

Hi,
As a new member of these forums (in an old body), I hope to describe my browsing problem correctly. My micro has fully updated Win XP and the current Firefox software: two users are setup on it. The first is named Administrator the second is named the full version of my real name, alias "dicke" for this. A half-dozen or so Win gurus at this university central computing and networking site were not able to give a reason for the following.

When signed on to the micro as dicke, Firefox gives me the page at

http://www.tauck.com/tours/usa-tours/western-usa-travel/yellowstone-tour-sls-2006/

and the second option in the menu on the right side of the page, "CHECK
AVAILABLE DATES", gives a set of calendar months with 'overlays' to show
if a tour date is open, limited, or full.

However, with signed on to the micro as Administrator, the same page
and availability date monthly calendars give me the calendars for each
month but NOT the 'overlays' showing that open, limited, or full indication
for the days.

The term 'overlays' is likely incorrect. I have reviewed a number of times
the setting of Firefox for the Administrator and the dicke users: I can find
NO differences. There are no firewall differences, Zonealarm, associated
with the user names.

There must be some tweak associated with the dicke user but not with
the Administrator user, or vice versa. Can anyone give me a hint as to
what I should look at next? Or, give me the resolution of the difference.

Best regards,
dicke

 

Welcome to Wilders Dicke!

Here's my best guess.

On that page, the "overlays" would be more likely called "underlays" because they are small pictures that are actually behind the text for the date shown.
The small background pictures are called from the page's style sheet (CSS) that specifies how a page should look (colors, fonts, sometimes picture backgrounds).
In Firefox, you can turn off the style sheet and that would also turn off the background images that are specified in it.

In the Administrator account in Firefox, go to the page and select the View Menu, Page Style, Basic Page Style.
That will turn on the Style Sheet as the author intended.

There might also be a setting that turns off ALL picture display in Firefox, but I don't know where that is located.
In Administrator, in Firefox, you can see some pictures on web pages, correct?
If you can, then it is most likely the Page Style setting in Firefox that is causing the problem.

 

Hi Devinco,

Thanx for the best guess on my display problem. The "Basic Page Style" is
turned on in both my Administrator and my dicke account, so that is not the root of my problem.

A difference, one I do not know how to reproduce, is that when I started the
Administrator account (after Dell replaced the mother board on this Optiplex
GX 260) I imported my settings from the Mozilla Suite. I did not do so for the
dicke user because I had removed the Mozilla Suite by the time I initially configured dicke. (I was a Mozilla Suite user "forever" and changed after I concluded it was not going to be upgraded in the future.)

So, I'm still wondering if this is some kind of security issue buried deep in the bowels of MicroSlush's, oops, MicroSoft's user profile files, wherever they might be located in XP/SP2. Suggestions from anyone at this point will be appreciated!

dicke

 

I get the markings on the calander with an admin acct. I'd be willing to bet that you're using different profiles between the two accts. What you might do is download something like CCleaner (www.ccleaner.com - this generally cleans a lot more thoroughly), clear the browser cache and try again. It's likely that the cache got corrupted or something. Make sure to set all options so it will clear out the cookies and everything else. Also make sure there isn't some kind of ad-blocking software that's only present in the admin account.

 

Hi Notok,
Thank you for the note on my Administrator vs. dicke user display problem. In order of your suggestions. (1) I ran CCleaner, V1.28.277 still current as of this morning, and did the clearing you suggested. This did not fix the problem. (2) I've set options to clear cookies and the cache every time I end a Firefox session: no help either.
I agree this is must be a setting in the Administrator account but not in the dicke account. My ZoneAlarm, Ad-Aware SE Personal, and Spybot S&D settings appear identical for both user ID's. I've drawn a blank on how to get to the real profile file XP/SP2 (the OS stuff is up to date as of 9:59 this a.m. when I installed latest two "critical updates") keeps whereever.
Any other suggestions will be appreciated, tho I'm very close to just giving up on this...

Best regards,
dicke