IE 6 Will not allow home page to change from MSN

[Guest]

My install of IE6 brings up MSN (http://www.msn.com/) as my home page no
matter what I do. I have tried to change under Tools->Internet Options, have
run spyware searches, booted up wtih items removed and even edited the
registry with some of the knowledgebase articles. Could you please let me
know what to do to stop this? Could this have to do with MSN Messenger?
This is installed on my machine.

Thanks!

Mike

 

[N. Miller]

My install of IE6 brings up MSN (http://www.msn.com/) as my home page no
matter what I do. I have tried to change under Tools->Internet Options, have
run spyware searches, booted up wtih items removed and even edited the
registry with some of the knowledgebase articles. Could you please let me
know what to do to stop this? Could this have to do with MSN Messenger?
This is installed on my machine.

Thanks!

Mike

Nope. I have MSN Messenger installed, and I don't lose my browser home page
in MSIE. I don't see anything in the options, either. Have you, perhaps,
run Spyware S&D, or something similar, which allows you to lock the current
home page setting of your browser? Perhaps you need to unlock some third
party security application to allow you to make that change.

 

[Jon Kennedy]

This has been a FAQ on this newsgroup. See this site for possible help and
more information:
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/answers/41.html

You may also want to check out StartPage Guard -
http://pjwalczak.com/spguard/index.php
StartPage Guard protects your PC from cyberscam, by monitoring status of
your internet browser StartPage and preventing it from any unauthorized
changes.

And to keep from having to manually edit the registry to unlock your
homepage settings, try this little script by Doug Knox, MS MVP:
http://www.dougknox.com/security/scripts_desc/nosethomepage.htm

More information here: http://www.cexx.org/hphijack.htm

 

[wnied]

Are you running any anti-spyware software on your computer? Alot o
times, they lock in your home page so that redirectors canno
automatically change them

~wnied

 

[Guest]

I think you may be a genius! I am running Ad-Aware and Ad-Watch by Lavasoft.
If I the Ad-Watch portion is loading with Windows and runs in the
background. When I disable this tool I am able to change my home page. I
tested by removing it from the startup list in msconfig and, sure enough, my
newly applied home page stuck. I just sent off and e-mail to Lavasoft for
what to do with this.

As a side note, I was planning to stop using the Lavasoft stuff soon anyway.
I signed up for SBC Yahoo DSL and they provide a free spyware (I think by
Computer Associates) so I thought I'd try that.

Anyway, thanks for your help! I will keep you posted!

Mike

 

[Guest]

Yes, I am running the Lavasoft Ad-Aware and Ad-Watch applications. I had
never thought about these as potentials. I will try to see what happens when
I play with them.

Thanks!

Mike

 

[Guest]

You are a genius! I contacted Lavasoft support and they sent the following
(their Ad-Watch product was the culprit and it was EASY to fix):

"Dear Customer,

1) Start Ad-Watch; if necessary right click on the Ad-Watch icon in the
system tray and select Ad-Watch settings.

2) Ensure all the blocking options you wish to run with are turned on in
Ad-Watch and then ensure that automatic is turned off, i.e. is a red cross.

3) Make your change to your home page

4) Ad-Watch will now pop an alert, accept the change. Ad-Watch will now use
this as the default home page setting and not alert any more.

5) Change Ad-Watch back to automatic if you wish Ad-Watch to automatically
correct any future changes.

6) Now start Ad-Aware SE. click the gear icon, click on defaults, then click
on "read current settings from system". Check that these are correct and then
click on proceed to save the settings. Ad-Aware SE will now use these
settings as the replacement values if a browser hijack is found.

These need to be set in the above order for things to work as expected."

This worked GREAT! If you know of a way for me to put this out into this
forum/newsgroup I should -- I'd like to save the next guy some time.

Anyway, THANKS!

Mike