Vertical Scroll Bars not wanted

Question

I have read other messages, but I cannot figure out why the
vertical scroll bar still appears in IE even though there is no
content below. The bar is there but not useable. Is there some code
that will turn this off when not needed?

Answer 1

That's the way IE (and some other browsers) works. It always
draws a
vertical scrollbar. If the scrollbar is not needed, it is
"ghosted" and
not usable, as you have noticed. When the page's content
exceeds the
window height the ghosted scrollbar rises from the grave and
becomes alive.
Other browsers do not add a scrollbar until one is needed.
Some people
don't like this because the addition of the scrollbar removes
some space
from the window, making it a bit narrower, and page elements
that are in
some way positioned or sized in relation to the window's
width will
shift and/or change size slightly.
IE's solution prevents this content shifting at the expense
of devoting
part of the window to a non-functioning interface element
some of the time.
(It is my belief that either method of handling the vertical
scrollbar
is fine, and skilled designers will not create pages that
fall apart if
a scrollbar should appear where there was none before. For
the record, I
subscribe to the no-scrollbar-at-all-until-one-is-needed
doctrine.)
James M. Shook
http://www.jshook.com