tabbed browsing weirdness....

[Fantatier]

So I reinstalled my System over the weekend updated everything and everything is running smoothly.

Now I thought before I reinstall Firefox I wanted to give the IE8 another chance, as ive grown fed up with FF's resource gobbling...

No generally ie works fine (as oposed to the old days ;))
but tabbed browsing is really weird. It might be because Im just used to FF but it doesnt seem that way.

If I click on links one of the following happens, and it seems very random what happens when.
-link opens in current tab
-link opens in new tab
-link opens in new window
now I would expect the first to happen everytime i simply click on a link but as i mentioned any one of the 3 happens and i cant seem to be able to tell when what happens its very random....

Now the question is whether Im just using it wrong or its somehow screwd...
In the preferences for tabbed browsing there seem to be only very few optins none of which seem to fit my problem.
So would anybody know if this is "normal" behaviour or not.

another question concerning tabs, can i change the settings anyhere so that CTRL-left mouse click opens a link in a new tab insted of a new window.

PS i have Ie7pro installed( because I didnt want to miss my good old adblockplus from FF, but IE7pro pretty useless as an adblocker...)