How To Always Save Tab Session In Internet Explorer 7?

Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) is a little too late coming back into the internet browser game after their infamous win defeating the Netscape Communicator into oblivion in the late 90s with almost all Windows flavors come installed with IE. Since that win, Internet Explorer has seen few upgrades, I mean "few".

With feature-rich browsers like Firefox, Maxthon, Opera and Safari that emerged after that and has been growing non-stop, Microsoft really did have a heavy task at hand. Apart from the popup blocker and phishing filter in the latest IE7, I don't see anything new that could entice me to convert from Firefox back to IE.

Unfortunately, many still use Internet Explorer, most of the time not for its features but for its compatibility with most websites and also the important thing is, it comes along with almost all flavours of Windows including Windows Vista. So, many (the un-enlightened ones ) don't see the need to install an alternative browser on their PC.


I've been using IE7 on and off for sometime now because some of my company websites just don't run on Firefox. I used to use Maxthon (which uses IE as the engine) but due to some unforseen circumstances, I've since fully converted to Firefox. I'm glad to say that I'm a very happy user except for the memory consumption part (as is the problem with tabs browser). I currently have 32 tabs on my Firefox and Windows is consuming some 240MB of memory and 227MB of virtual memory with 15% CPU Usage. However, I doubt Internet Explorer can handle 32 tabs with Windows running smoothly at the same time on my notebook.

One gripe I have with the Internet Explorer 7 is that I cannot set it to "always" save the tab sessions. Whenever I close Internet Explorer 7, I have to make sure I check the "Open these the next time I use Internet Explorer" option.

The next time I close Internet Explorer 7, I've to check the option again. Internet Explorer 7 does not remember my preference and the option always remained uncheck, EVERYTIME!

I've tried searching around to find a remedy to this problem in the form of registry patch or tweak but found none. From the Internet Explorer forum, I found that even the IE developers said that there is no way to make that option checked by default. What the hell... I even tried looking inside the registry, but no luck there as well. I stopped looking soon after that.



Open these the next time I use Internet Explorer

Fortunately, I finally found a solution a few days ago. It comes in the form of an add-on for Internet Explorer. It is known as IE7Pro. IE7Pro is currently in version 1.2 which was released on October 30th, 2007 and weighed in at 1.57MB. I don't know how I didn't come across this earlier. Better late than never I guess. IE7Pro looks like a stripdown version of the Firefox's Tab Mix Plus.

Upon installed, you can find the IE7Pro preferences at the IE7's Tools menu.



IE7Pro Preferences Menu

IE7Pro allows you to customize the tabs behaviour which was not available in the plain vanilla IE7. Besides that, there are quite a few other available customizations as well like AD Blocker, Super Drag and Drop, Mouse Gestures, Shortcut Keys, Alias, Plugin Management and some.



IE7Pro Preferences

But all I am interested in are 'Enable Tab session restore' and 'Close tab when double clicked'. I'd be using the Alias too to add in search engines for easier searching but since I'm using Firefox as my default browser, I don't see the need for that.

Now, you can disable the message that is prompted everytime you close the IE7.



Disable message

So, the next time you open IE7, you will be prompted to choose which tabs that were saved in the previous session that you want opened.



Open saved tabs session

Firefox's Tab Mix Plus not only saves the last session but also the previous to last session. That means if the last session can't be recovered when your browser somehow crashed, you still have the choice to open the previous to last session. This is not available in the default installation of IE7Pro. If you want, you can install an IE7Pro plugin called Session Manager to save and restore multiple sessions.

IE7Pro also opens your default homepage everytime as well as your saved tabs, and there's no way to turn this off. If you open more than one instance of Internet Explorer 7, be warned that IE7Pro doesn't save tab session in the other instances.

IE7Pro should look into improving on these issues and perhaps look into Tab Mix Plus or other add-ons for more inspiration. But I bet that many are already requesting such features in its forums.

Well, at least installing IE7Pro solved the biggest issues I have with Internet Explorer 7. I am now able to save tab sessions and double-click on a tab to close it. That should be enough to make me a happy once-in-a-while user.

Microsoft still has a lot of work to make Internet Explorer 7 at least comparable to the likes of Firefox, Maxthon, Opera or Safari. I'm sure they can do it as they have a great track record in bouncing back and make whatever they do a standard for everyone to follow. The question remains whether they want to do it or not.

Download: IE7 Pro