+1  A: 

What version of IE?

Try adding the following CSS rule: html, body { height: 100%; width: 100%; margin: 0; padding: 0; }

The other thing you could do (though it might seem heavy-handed) is have a BorderContainer as your top-level element and have the TabContainer as the region="center" part.

<div dojoType="dijit.layout.BorderContainer" style="width:100%;height:100%">
    <div dojoType="dijit.layout.ContentPane region="top" style="height:60px">
        ...
    </div>
    <div dojoType="dijit.layout.TabContainer region="center">
        ...
    </div>
</div>

I confess I can't try this in IE as am on Mac but have been doing loads of dijit layout lately and something like this should work.

Michael B
Thank you very much! I couldn't get the first way to work, but the BorderContainer did the job!oh, and IE version 6, if anyone still cares.
humoeba