I ended up doing the same sort of thing a while back when writing a Javascript demo disc application (in itself a WTF: boss didn't want to buy Flash.) The navigation links in the app worked while I was developing it, then one day just stopped working in IE for no reason I could ever figure out. Unfortunately, not knowing much Javascript, I just duplicated the link functionality using document.location. True to Sod's Law, this worked right up until it was time for me to give the final demo and hand in the completed project ... at which point the links started working normally again, so every time I clicked a link in IE it would open both in a new window and in the current one.