Weird IE7 Hover Bug/Problem

This is my little CSS style:

#languages_menu
{
  background: url('/images/langs.png') repeat-y;
  bottom: 40px;
  font-size: 0.9em;
  right: 10px;
  position: absolute;
  width: 90px;
}

#languages_menu ul, #languages_menu ul li
{
  list-style: none;
}

#languages_menu ul li a
{
  cursor: pointer;
  display: block;
  line-height: 22px;
  margin-left: 10px;
  text-decoration: none;
  width: 80px;
}

#languages_menu ul li a:hover
{
  background-color: #AEBDD2;
  color: #F00;
}

#languages_menu ul li a span.flag
{
  float: left;
  margin: 3px 5px 0 3px;
}

And this is my HTML code (copied from Developer Toolbar, so don't worry, it's valid):

<!-- DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd" -->
...
<DIV id=languages_menu><DIV class=topimg></DIV>
  <DIV>
    <UL>
      <LI><A class=en><SPAN class=flag></SPAN><SPAN class=name>English</SPAN></A></LI>
      <LI><A class=fr><SPAN class=flag></SPAN><SPAN class=name>Français</SPAN></A></LI>
      ...
    </UL>
  </DIV>
</DIV>

In IE8, IE8Compatibility and IE9, and in every other browser, :HOVER is working like a charm. But if I switch to IE7 or lesser, the anchor is not changing anymore on mouse over.

The worst thing is that I have other similar codes on the same page and they are still working after I switch to IE7, like the following one:

#navigation
{
  height: 22px;
  position: relative;
  width: 100%;
}

#navigation ul
{
  float: left;
  left: 50%;
}

#navigation ul, #navigation ul li
{
  float: left;
  list-style: none;
  position: relative;
}

#navigation ul li
{
  right: 50%;
}

#navigation ul li a
{
  color: #889DBF;
  display: block;
  line-height: 22px;
  padding-left: 20px;
  text-decoration: none;
}

#navigation ul li a b
{
  display: block;
  padding-right: 21px;
}

#navigation ul li.current a, #navigation ul li a:hover
{
  background: url('/images/navigation-left.png') no-repeat;
  color: #111B35;
}

#navigation ul li.current a b, #navigation ul li a:hover b
{
  background: url('/images/navigation-right.png') no-repeat 100% 0;
  color: #111B35;
}

<DIV id=navigation>
  <UL>
    开发者_运维知识库<LI class=current><A href="#login"><B id=text_menu_login>Accedi</B></A></LI>
    <LI><A href="#register"><B id=text_menu_register>Registrati</B></A></LI>
    ...
  </UL>
</DIV>

Anyone knows why this is happening and how to fix it?

[EDIT] I just found a fix for this bug. If i replace:

#languages_menu ul li a:hover

With:

#languages_menu ul li:hover a

The menu works great even with IE lesser than 8. But I don't think it's a good solution for cross-browser compatibility because :hover pseudo-class can not be used in IE lesser than 7.

MANY MANY THANKS ERIC!

you need to add href to your anchor, a:hover is not picked up by IE7 otherwise:

<A class=en href="#">

another trick is to add empty rule in your css:

#languages_menu ul li a:hover {
  /* all your hover rules go here */
}

#languages_menu ul li:hover a {
  /* keep this empty, triggers a:hover on IE7  */
}

Add a default background-color to your non-hovered link (just use white).