Open a link in a new tab in Internet Explorer 8

As noted earlier, Windows 7 comes with Internet Explorer 8, and this will be the first time many users will be exposed to it. And one particular function—link behavior—is a departure from what you’re probably used to. Specifically, most browsers by default, when you click on a link that is programmed to spawn a new window, open that window as a new tab within the browser. In IE8, however, Microsoft has set the default so that when you click on such a link, it opens in a new browser window instead of a new tab, which somewhat defeats the whole purpose of tabbed browsing. To add insult to injury, changing this setting isn’t so simple, because Microsoft uses some unintuitive terminology here, referring to such links as “pop-ups.”

You'll need to tweak this in the Tabbed Browsing Settings dialog box in IE8:

To adjust this setting, go to Tools > Internet Options > General > Tabs > Settings, and instead of looking in the Open links… section (which applies to links from other programs), go to the Pop-up section, entitled When a pop-up is encountered. Mark the radio button next to Always open pop-ups in a new tab and choose OK. Easy-schmeasy, but not so intuitive.