Create a basic html file that opens in IE

This could very well be a problem in the registry.

Look for the following key in the registry editor (which I hope you're familiar with):

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.html]

Does the "Content Type" REG_SZ value exist, and if so, what is its value?

• If it does exist, it should be "text/html".

• If it doesn't exist, use the (Default) REG_SZ value to locate the associated file type HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT key. E.g. if it says htmlfile, look under:

  [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile]
  

  If that key doesn't have a "Content Type" value either (or it isn't "text/html"), create it and set it to "text/html". That should fix it.

If you have to make that change, though, it might just be a stop-gap solution, since I don't know what actually "corrupted" those MIME types in the first place.

I also don't know if there are any other, better ways to fix this.

Are you certain the filename is index.html and not index.html.txt or something? Windows does have a bad habit of trying to help you and get in your way at times.

Try creating the file by opening a command prompt window and typing: "notepad index.html" (without the quotes of course). You might get prompted that the file does not exist, just click yes you want to create it and then paste in that HTML you mentioned.

If that doesn't clear it up, you probably have something more seriously wrong with your mime types and file extension mappings. Try adjusting them under the Tools -> Folder Options -> File Types (under Windows XP, might be different but similar under Vista/7). It could be you have somehow associated HTML with a plain text file type.