The "Disappering Act"

The results of the experiments presented in Scrollin' Along..., clearly indicated that the infamous, ever-present Vertical Scrollbar os Internet Explorer only exists in the default value of overflow property of the html element. This led to the sneakinfg suspicion that this "strange animal" is a "band-aid" (Or, shall we say "patch" to be polite) to cover-up the fundamental problems associated with the height/width calculations made in controling scrollbars.

However, this "patch" can be removed, and rather easily! Let's see how...

Starting Point

Starting with a rather simple page, which does not require activation of neither of the Default Scrollbars:

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S
S

html
{background: none #a52a2a;
height: 100%; width: 100%;}

body
{background: none #006700;
margin: 0; padding: 0;}

p
{font-family: sans-serif;
margin-top: 0px; padding: 4px;
font-size: large; font-weight: bold;}

H
T
M
L

<body>

<p>

This is some text....

</p>

</body>

Screen-shot - Vertical scrollbar is visible, but not active

As the screen-shot shows the infamous Vertical Scrollbar is there, visible but not active.

A Little Magic

Let's make this infamous Vertical Scrollbar disappear:

The "Magical Wand" used in this disappearing act is the addition of a single setting to the CSS styling:
html {overflow-y: auto;}
And, thus, overriding the default value of scroll for this property.

Please note that, this imaginative solution applies to Standards Mode only. In the Quirks Mode, try:
body {overflow-y: auto;}

Caution!...

By setting the "overflow-y" property of the html element to auto, you may be taking the risk of premature activation of the Default Horizontal Scrollbar!

Overflow-Y & Overflow-X

The overflow-y and overflow-x properties individually control the Vertical and Horizontal Scrollbars respectively.

These properties are presently proprietary to Internet Explorer only. Consequently, they will be ignored by other Browsers.

However, it appears these properties will be included in CSS3, and may adopted by the other browsers.

Bottom Line

The foregoing makes it very obvious that this "patch" is to cover-up the Fundamental Flaw of this browser in calculating the height/width to activate the Vertical and/or Horizonal scrollbar. In other words, the Default Vertical Scrollbar is permanently abled, to avoid the premature activation of the Horizontal Scrollbar. This was achieved simply by setting the "overflow" property of the html element to scroll !

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