Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

homepage problem

by rolexdude Jul 29, 2004 4:16AM PDT

my homepage is set to the MSN gaming zone, but i want to change it. I went to internet options, but NONE of the buttons to change it are filled in, they are grayed out, so i cant change my home page. Plus i try to join a game there and it says ActiveX controls are disallowing it to display correctly. was not doing this yesterday. uninstalled Zone files and tried reinstalling but noting happened. am stuck with nothing. how do i fix the homepage?

Discussion is locked

2 Posts

- Collapse + Expand Details

- Collapse -

Re: homepage problem

by Kees Bakker Jul 29, 2004 5:26AM PDT

This could be caused by some spyware you got infected with. Do the online check with housecall.antivirus.com, and download and run adaware and spybot.

The homepage is defined in the registry (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page) and can be changed with regedit, maybe.
If you've got Windows 98 (and no profiles!) you could boot into MS-DOS and do a scanreg /restore to yesterday's version of it. That would restore the ActiveX security settings also. Have you tried to restore them to what they were with Option>Tools>Security?
In Windows XP a system restore might be possible, but it depends on how long ago you made a restore point if that is feasible.

Hope this helps.

Kees

- Collapse -

Re: homepage problem

by Cursorcowboy Jul 29, 2004 7:28AM PDT

1. Please note that just above the text editor (where you enter a question on the forum) is the following paragraph, and if certain information is not present in your question, our reply may not be of much help:

Tip: If you are asking for help to troubleshoot a computer-related problem, please be sure to include all the necessary information (ie: operating system, model number, hardware, software, etc) that will help others identify your problem for a speedy resolution.

2. First, just be sure you have no utilities which has been installed to lock the home page

a. "HijackThis" is a general homepage hijacker, detector, and remover which you may be using, (Config, Main, Below URLs will be . . ).

b. "Spybot Search&Destroy v1.3" has a lock (Tools, IE tweeks, middle box check).