Back button in Internet Explorer becomes unavailable

When you are using Internet Explorer to view various Web sites, the Back and Forward buttons on the toolbar may be missing or may become unavailable.

A correction for this issue has been incorporated into current builds of Internet Explorer 5. To resolve this issue, download Internet Explorer 5 or later from the following Microsoft Web site:

The buttons are not available

To work around this problem, you can use the History bar to return to a Web page you previously visited. To do this, click History on the toolbar, and then click the site that you want to visit in the History bar.

To view your history in the order that you viewed the Web pages, follow these steps:

1. Click the History button to open the History Explorer bar.
2. In the History Explorer bar, click By Order Visited Today on the View menu.

The buttons are missing

If Internet Explorer is set to full screen mode, then the menu bar will not be visible. To work around this problem, follow these steps:

1. Press F11 to bring Internet Explorer to normal view.
2. Click View, point to Toolbars, click Standard, and then select the Standard toolbar check box is selected. If Standard toolbar is already selected, go to step 3.
3. Click View, point to Toolbars, and then click Customize.
4. Click Front in the Available toolbar buttons list, and then click Add.
5. Click Back in the Available toolbar buttons list, and then click Add.
6. Click Close.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.