Windows 8 and Masslandrecords.com

While working in our Customer Service area on Friday, I took a call from a website user who was having difficulty with the "search criteria" box.  When you go to masslandrecords.com, either directly or via www.lowelldeeds.com, the default search fields are last name and first name.  To change the type of search, you move your cursor over the "search criteria" item in the upper left menu bar.  This causes a small box filled with links to the other types of searches - for Registered Land, for plans, by address, by book/page, etc - to appear.  Clicking on one changes the search fields.

My caller was having difficulty with the search criteria box although I had trouble understanding the nature of that difficulty and was able to talk the customer through finding the document through the default name search which was functioning fine.

An hour later, a second call of a similar nature came in.  This caller, whom I knew, was better able to describe the problem and the circumstances around it.  She was using a brand new computer, purchased at Staples, which was running Windows 8, the free Norton antivirus software that comes with it, and using Internet Explorer to access the web.  When she moved to "search criteria", the box of choices appeared but clicking on the choices did nothing - the links were broken.

Suspecting it was a problem caused by Windows 8, I called Tech Support at the Secretary of State's office.  They had received a similar call not too long before and were searching what was causing the problem.  What they did know is that the problem did not occur when the website was accessed using Firefox or any other web interface but Internet Explorer.  So the short term work around for this problem, should you or someone you know experience it, is to download the free Firefox web browser and begin using that.  Because of prior experiences similar to this with Internet Explorer, I switched to Firefox long ago.  It's easy to use, is unobtrusive and makes it easy to switch back and forth between it and Internet Explorer should you so desire.  My understanding is that we are aggressively searching for a fix to Internet Explorer, so you won't have to abandon that application long-term to continue using Masslandrecords.  In the short-term, if you have difficulty, try Firefox.