Question: Site set as homepage Permanently?

[Jihforce]

Question, have any of you had a site bookmark itself as your default homepage PERMANENTLY?
My fiance had this "no so nice" website with multiple popup set as default homepage and IE won't let her clear it. She tells me the buttons are greyed out. Weird...

[LPMiller]

yeah, I've seen this, it's a spyware problem.

2 things - one, check the hosts file to make sure it hasn't been altered in odd ways.

Second, there is a reg setting where IE stores the home page. You can either purge this, or put in the page you want instead.

[mojo]

i've had this happen as well. they're even so nice as to disable your ability to reset your page easily. i always end up searching the reg for that url and manually putting g|a/forums in there in its place (often many places), as i can't just click the thing to set my homepage to the current page again. if anyone has an easier way i'd like to hear it.

the really, really swell thing about it is that it's always one of them thar pop-up sites that do it, so it's not like i visit on purpose and get those pages :dodgy:

[Jihforce]

Thanks for the all the advice.
Isn't that illegal tho? Going around changing people's IE setting and not letting them revert them is pretty messed up.:hmm:

[tweeteresa]

it's microsoft. shouldn't that tell you enough? :shrug:

[DankNstickY]

Originally posted by tweeteresa
it's microsoft. shouldn't that tell you enough? :shrug:

MICROSOFT??? i always find a site like whitehouse.com set as my homepage :confused:


:naughty:

:P

[Mpowered]

Originally posted by Jihforce
Thanks for the all the advice.
Isn't that illegal tho? Going around changing people's IE setting and not letting them revert them is pretty messed up.:hmm: AOL actually does the to a certain extent. It doesn’t go in and change your homepage permanently but it does change other settings for good. If you answer “Yes” when the installer asks “Do you want AOL to be your default internet connection?” it changes a whole bunch of settings. The only way to revert your settings would be to format and reinstall. This was a problem with 6.0 and 7.0. I don’t know if it will affect 8.0. And so far there haven't been any legal issues against AOL for this.

[dbax791]

Thats why I set my "internet zone" to higher security and disable Java. I allow everything to run on trusted sites. It's a pain at first to keep adding trusted sites, but after awhile its not too hard.

[DankNstickY]

Originally posted by dbax791
Thats why I set my "internet zone" to higher security and disable Java. I allow everything to run on trusted sites. It's a pain at first to keep adding trusted sites, but after awhile its not too hard.

you go through all that only so it won't change your homepage?

[Nija]

Originally posted by DankNstickY


you go through all that only so it won't change your homepage?

I think he does it, because then he doesn't have to worry about a vast majority of spyware...

[dbax791]

Originally posted by Nija


I think he does it, because then he doesn't have to worry about a vast majority of spyware...

That, and it prevents cookies, full-screen browser windows, automatically-added desktop icons, and all the other crap those evil-doers try to pull over on you.:angry:

[chrissy]

Originally posted by Mpowered
AOL actually does the to a certain extent. It doesn’t go in and change your homepage permanently but it does change other settings for good. If you answer “Yes” when the installer asks “Do you want AOL to be your default internet connection?” it changes a whole bunch of settings. The only way to revert your settings would be to format and reinstall. This was a problem with 6.0 and 7.0. I don’t know if it will affect 8.0. And so far there haven't been any legal issues against AOL for this.

Yeah, AOL does it and so does certain versions of UPS shipping software. When UPS bought the right to install IE, they wrote it to write to the registry and set the homepage to UPS. A lot of calls came in about that one. All had to be sent up to us at 2nd level to work on it because we didn't need people who just knew how to type walking people through the registry and when we wrote a fix, we had to send a email that they couldn't send. fun fun fun :rolleyes:

[Jihforce]

And the plot thickens...
I go over to check out the problem and do what was suggested. (edit the reg) and guess what happens??? When I double click on regedit, it pops a little message saying that the administrator has disabled this feature. The bad part is the account was an administrator account! :eek:
This is quite troublesome...

[Cantacuzene]

Damn dude. Try adaware. It may detect the bad stuff.

[hang10wannabe]

Originally posted by Cantacuzene
Damn dude. Try adaware. It may detect the bad stuff.

:stupid:


got|adaware?

[GilbertsGrape]

Go to control panel > choose internet options > under the general tab set your homepage.

you may have to reboot and do this before connecting to the internet.

also check and see if something weird was added to your startup menu (under program files)

Also use msconfig from the run menu choose the start up tab and look for weird things there that may be resetting your home page at boot.



And one other thing to try is under users add another administrator profile and log in use that. When a new profile is created win xp automatically sets that profile to msn.com home page.

[GilbertsGrape]

Ps. i think this is in the wrong forum ... Move to Software or tech support > IMHO

[hang10wannabe]

Originally posted by GilbertsGrape
Ps. i think this is in the wrong forum ... Move to Software or tech support > IMHO

someone doesnt like to live life on the edge ;)

[GilbertsGrape]

Originally posted by hang10wannabe


someone doesnt like to live life on the edge ;)


/me has just put up with boneheads at work all day :stupid:

anyways I just fixed my lab problems ppl would install all kinds of crap of go to sites that do this to my lab pc's or install a bunch of crap... I just installed Deep Freeze..... If someone tried installing any thing all I have to do is re boot and it will be to back to my original settings. if someone reformats the drive or fdisks the drive just reboot the pc and the system will be back to my original settings sweet isn’t it.


Sigh my life just got easier

[seqiro]

Originally posted by Jihforce
And the plot thickens...
I go over to check out the problem and do what was suggested. (edit the reg) and guess what happens??? When I double click on regedit, it pops a little message saying that the administrator has disabled this feature. The bad part is the account was an administrator account! :eek:
This is quite troublesome...

Sounds like maybe it messed with your policies. Try this (WinXP, but probably similar for Win2K)

Go to Start -> Run and type gpedit.msc and press enter.

In the left pane, open up User Configuration, then Administrative Templates and then click on System

In the right pane, doubleclick on Prevent access to registry editing tools.

Choose Disabled and click "OK".

You may need to reboot at this point.

You should now be able to run REGEDIT.


Like all the people above said, get Ad-Aware (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/) NOW. :)

[rajatQ2]

i know someone suggested ad-aware, and thats what i think you should try first. It will grab any processes that might be running w/o you realizing it. Adaware is free and GREAT

www.lavasoftusa.com is where you can get it. it might resolve LOTS of yourt problems. HTH