Opening browser does not bring up my internet connection box automat. anymore

[Dave]

As of yesterday when I open IE, I would get the prompt
box to open my Internet connection and I would press
connect and everything went fine. The last two days when
I open my browser, instead of getting the connection box,
I now get the box asking if I want to work offline
because there is no connection available. I have to go
and open my connection first, then open IE. Everything
was done automatically before. Now its been awhile since
I set the options to prompt me to connect after opening
IE, so I am not sure where these options are now.
I do have checked that IE dial a connection where one is
not present in the options panel of IE.
Now either something isn't ckecked properly or a file is
missing?
Can anybody help me get it back to where it was?
I am using WinXP and in previous versions you would go to
the Networking options to configure that. But I am lost
now.
Thank you

 

[maureen.s.taylor \(at\) btopenworld.com]

I am having exactly the same trouble, with Windows 2000. I
downloaded all the security updates yesterday, which took
about 4 hours, and now Internet Explorer is worse than it
was before! It is so annoying. If you hear what to do
with it, please let me know!

 

[Mox 13]

Same thing started here yesterday. Just to add a little info, I ended up
using System Restore in XP Pro to restore it to the day before. This fixed
the problem, but it came back this morning. I have run virus scans on all
drives with no results.

Eagerly watching this thread.

Mox

 

[David Frey]

I'm in the same boat. Installed the latest critical updates on the Windows
Update page, and now it refuses to connect automatically, even though the
connection settings are set to Always dial.

 

[David Frey]

I found the solution to my problem. It was only a coincidence that I
installed the latest IE updates at the time the problem appeared. I use the
Google Toolbar and on that same day it automatically downloaded a valentine
promo to skin the toolbar with a valtine scheme. By disabling that promo,
and putting the toolbar back into its normal state, IE now connects
correctly. I disabled the promo by simply renaming
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\NavClient\1.1\Promo to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\NavClient\1.1\BadPromo
By doing that, the toolbar doesn't see the valentine mess and all works
fine.

You'll also notice that it does this per profile. I believe this is why some
people are changing to a different profile and having IE work fine, only to
mess up again since the toolbar installs that scheme for the new profile

Hope it is of some to others.

 

[Mox 13]

Yep that worked.

Thanks.

Mox

I found the solution to my problem. It was only a coincidence that I
installed the latest IE updates at the time the problem appeared. I use the
Google Toolbar and on that same day it automatically downloaded a valentine
promo to skin the toolbar with a valtine scheme. By disabling that promo,
and putting the toolbar back into its normal state, IE now connects
correctly. I disabled the promo by simply renaming
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\NavClient\1.1\Promo to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\NavClient\1.1\BadPromo
By doing that, the toolbar doesn't see the valentine mess and all works
fine.

You'll also notice that it does this per profile. I believe this is why some
people are changing to a different profile and having IE work fine, only to
mess up again since the toolbar installs that scheme for the new profile

Hope it is of some to others.

 

[Dave]

Another incident where software is downloading applets
without asking permission. I hate that!

 

[Mox 13]

Bad News David,

At least for me. I followed your suggestion yesterday and it worked, but The
Valentine Promo reinstalled itself this evening. Again the dialer would not
come up, just the No Connection box. Strange so many days after Valentines
Day. Anyway I have now uninstalled the Google Toolbar and everything is
working normally. I think I will just watch and wait for a while.

Mox

 

[David Frey]

Yep, it reinstalled itself again on me shortly after I posted that solution.
However instead of deleting the key this time, I decided to leave the key
and instead delete the values in the key. Then to ensure it worked, I also
deleted the ggext*.dll files in C:\Program Files\Google and so far it
hasn't reinstalled itself. I also sent Google a report of the error and how
the problem could be disabled. I'm also wondering if it might be Windows
that is restoring the changes. I'll find out by tomorrow.

 

[eng60340]

i've received an email from google telling me that they have solved
the problem. i just need to uninstall and redownload the new google
bar. so far so good.

 

[David Frey]

It was an educated guess. The only significant things that had changed on my
system were the IE security update and the Google toolbar valentine theme.
So looking in the registry I saw the Promo key contained a value that
pointed to a toolbar extension dll. Using Visual Studio I examined the
resources of that dll and saw the valentine theme resources. So it followed
that I should try eliminating or hiding that dll. I chose to hide it by
deleting the key. It solved the problem for about a day. Then the toolbar
reinstalled that extension dll and the problem returned. I reported the
error to Google and a day later I got an email saying that they had updated
the toolbar itself to fix the problem. So I uninstalled the toolbar and
installed the new one. And it is fixed.