Google Toolbar in IE 9 not showing up.

Well, I finally am being forced to upgrade IE 8 on my work PC to IE 9.  I'm not a huge fan of IE anyway, but I don't hate it either.  It has its pros and cons.  But I definitely prefer the UI on IE8 to that of IE9.  Specifically I do not like the alert bar at the bottom nor the way downloads are handled in IE9.  But honestly at the end of the day that is just opinion and preference and has no real bearing on how "good" it is as an internet browser.

I know many people complain about security in IE and the slowness, but sometimes, since it is the de facto standard of browsers, it has to be used to get the job done.  I use five different browsers personally. In descending order of use they are Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Atomic Web browser (on the iPad.)

So I made the switch and sure enough the one feature I insist on having in IE, Google Toolbar, won't install correctly.  Well, to be more precise, it installs just fine.  I just cannot see it.  I do the usual uninstall, reboot, reinstall to no avail.  I made sure the add-on was enabled, that I had the right version for my OS, etc.  Everything checked out, but still no toolbar.  And even more problematic, in the View>>Toolbars the Google Toolbar wasn't even showing up.

Then I started going through me settings and found that one of the settings on the Internet Options>>advanced>>browsing was disabled and causing me all my problems.  It was the one named "Allow third party Browser Extensions" and it was unchecked.  I checked it to enable add-ons, restarted the browser and, voilà, I had my toolbar once again.

Still not entirely happy about using IE9, but I am better now that I have my toolbar back.