This issue is very specific to IE 8 (both the public IE 8 beta 2 release and the latest MS partner RC1 - december 08 release). Popcap applets do not load on Windows/ IE 8 using jre 6u12.

Tested OS: x86- Windows Vista (sp1), XP-pro(sp3)
Browser: IE 8 (public beta 2 and latest RC 1 partner release)
jre: 6u12-b03

Steps to reproduce:
------------------
- Installed 6u12-b03 on Windows Vista machine
- Using IE 8 to load following popcap applets:
http://www.popcap.com/games/free/atomica
(or http://www.popcap.com/games/free/rocketmania)

If the applets fail to load, then the problem is reproducible. In fact, exception thrown and the game flow redirected back to the popcap home page instead of loading the selected online game. The problem is isolated to IE 8 as it is not reproducible using IE 7 or latest FF 3.0.x under the same test environment.

Here's java console exception (in case of using IE 8):
java.lang.InterruptedException
at java.lang.Object.wait(Native Method)
at java.awt.image.PixelGrabber.grabPixels(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.image.PixelGrabber.grabPixels(Unknown Source)
at d.a(DashoA8464)
at d.run(DashoA8464)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
java.lang.NullPointerException
at d.run(DashoA8464)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Resource thread failed due to exception!
java.lang.NullPointerException
at d.run(DashoA8464)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)