IE 6sp2 will not allow me to change my homepage!

Hi All,

I am new to this site & a first time poster who is desperately seeking an answer. Yesterday I was surfing the internet with my Zone Alarm Pro disabled (stupid, I know.... but it often interferes with downloading.) I surfed onto a malicious site & was immediately bombarded by hijackers, downloaders, redirects & pop- ups for 30 minutes! (It took me this long to stop all the malicious activity.)

I immediately used RegHance to delete all the software and registry items that were installed, and then ran Spybot, Ada-ware, Norton Utilities & chkdsk /f, which took forever! Of course, my IE 6 sp2 was set to some porn/shopping site (not too cool for a female) and a “special toolbar” was installed. I deleted the toolbar, but was unable to reset my browser’s homepage back to Google. Instead, I reset the default, msn.com, to stop the pop- ups. Now, I cannot reset my homepage at all!
The “General” tab will not give me that option, & I have even tried to reset it using TweakNow PowerPack 2003. (I have inserted a screen shot of my IE window, please see below. Under the "General" tab the "Home Page" address is listed as: /isapi/redir.dll?prd=ie&pver=6&iar=msnhome. ALL tabs under "Homepage" are faded out so that I cannot re-enter an address, Use Current, Use Default, or Use Blank.)

I would just uninstall/ reinstall IE, but my husband’s business email (plus my forwards from friends and family) is set through Outlook Express. We have over 2000 email messages total in the inboxes right now, so a back- up would be extremely time consuming. (I know that using Outlook Express is not the smartest thing to do, but it’s really the only way my husband can check his business email as he is not computer literate. ANY advice would be VERY MUCH appreciated...

Thanks in advance,

Gina

 

the following step involves editing the registry. DO NOT perform this unless you feel comfortable in the registry. As usual, make a back up just in case.


Open up regedit and find the key
HKEY CURRENT USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

in that key should be your start up page. Change it from there by double clicking on the start up key and putting your start page in. Do this for now until we can figure out why it's locked.


Check spybot.. it has an option to lock the home page.. it gets greyed out just like your picture.

 

Thanks Kodo!!

Kodo,
Thank you! This worked!

Oddly enough, there is another registry entry below the Start Page that reads "Start Page_bak" --already set to Google! (I'm sure that's normal too, but I'm more of a novice than I thought...)

Also, Spybot had 3 homepages (2 were msn redirects) and 8 search engines listed in my "Browser pages" section... I really do appreciate your timely response. I plan to hang out here more often and LEARN a few things!

Take Care,
Gina

P.S. Am checking out the URL you listed too and, so far I agree totally!

 

You're welcome ..

and..

WELCOME TO MAJOR GEEKS !

 

Homepage greyed out

None of this has helped me. Someone, my daughter probably, downloaded something that has greyed out my ability to change my homepage and I cannot reset it to my favourite one. Tried your suggestions about the registry edit but my homepage in intenet tools is still greyed out. Any other advice. Oh ya, tried highjackthis but it does not help. I am sure there must be a registry hack that can fix this!

 

Hi Rick, welcome to Major Geeks..we request that you start a new thread so it's easier to track your problem..
Thanks