Opening a file in IE8 sometimes disables the page

[felixblumenfeld]

I have begun to experience a strange problem lately with IE8 on Windows XP SP3. The steps to reproduce the problem are:

Ctrl-click on the title of a work to open the contents in a new window.
Click on the six-figure number (#xxxxxx).
Click on Date/Time to open the file; the file opens in Acrobat (rather than in the browser window).
Close the file in Acrobat. If you click rather inside the window from which you came (visible underneath Acrobat), the score remains visible and superimposes itself on top of the browser window.
Go to the browser window from which you came; right-click in no longer possible and the window is empty and dark grey; the window can be closed by clicking on the "x" on the tab.

The problem does not appear in Firefox. Instead, clicking on the six-figure number opens a preview of the page and clicking inside this preview opens the file inside Firefox. Is there a way of convincing IE8 to work correctly and of achieving the display of the Firefox-style preview in IE8?

Thanks in advance.