This sounds similar to what I have happening in IE 8. I have had several of my users complain about the same thing I am about to describe, too. When I open IE to my home page of Google, the drop down list no longer shows choices of searches as I type. If I hit enter to search on the word or phrase that I typed, nothing happens. I discovered this morning that if I click the "Search settings" link at the top-right corner and then click "Save Preferences" without even making any changes, the site begins working normally again. However, if I close IE and then open it to do another search, it doesn't work again and I have to go through those same steps to get anything to work. What is going on?????

 

I wrote that yesterday afternoon and posted it somewhere else.  This morning, the search seems to be working again, but the dropdown list still is not.