IE 8 Developer Tools not working In Windows?

Question

I am using Internet Explorer 8, not by choice. I need to debug a script in it. However, no matter how many times I click the Developer Tools Icon, under Tools or click F12 it will not show up. Sometimes, I can see that it is minimized in the taskbar but when I actually go to click it. It will not show up...

Does anyone know how to get it to work or what the problem is? I tried updating restarting killing all the processes with no luck.

Answer 1

I had the same problem as described. The problem seemed to be that the IE 8 Developer Toolbar window had a zero size. Futhermore, I could see the IE 8 Dev Toolbar when I used Tab + Windows key and it was listed below the other windows as though it was off screen also.

The way I solved this was to right click on the IE 8 Dev Toolbar in the taskbar and select Maximise. From there I could see the Dev Toolbar fullscreen (though this is not very helpful as I wanted to select elements on my webpage by click). I then clicked on Pin (or you can press ctrl + p). From there you should be able to Unpin the Dev Toolbar and resize it and use as normal.

Answer 2

I tried nearly all the answers but none of them worked in my case. The way I made that worked is a little bit work around.

1. Go to Tools> Internet Options> Advanced> Uncheck the disable script debugging.
2. Now, open up any html page which has some scripting errors. This will enable the developers tool back to work.

Answer 3

I would add the "Developer Tool" in the current toolbar buttons by clicking on Tools ->Customize Toolbar. Disable Debugging settings should be unchecked. Then click on Developer Tool button in the toolbar. It will display the debugger window separately and maximized. On the right up corner will the icon for pin it. Click on it, it will get attached with the current page you are debugging.

Answer 4

I do the follow...

CLick with the right button on the TaskBar inside de IE 8 Developer Tools, them select move.

Then try to move with the mouse or move by arrows

Answer 5

Probably totally of topic, I have struggled with this as well, however it was disabled too.

After googling (the answer seemed almost identical to the one given here: Why isn't my IE8 Developer Tools working?) I found that the Disabled key was set (had its value set to 1). So open regedit, find the key (also mentioned above in other answers):

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\IEDevTools]

Then find the property:

Disabled = 1

And set it to:

Disabled = 0

After opening IE8, I could use the developer tools again :).

Answer 6

Try holding down the WINDOWS key (next to the alt/ctrl) and use the arrow keys