Homepage Keeps Changing

utah · 24 Jun 2006 at 16:48

jsut reinstalled windows on my laptop and the homepage in internet explorer wont change, it keeps going back to the manufacturers (acer) website, how can i sto this??

Kerplunk · 24 Jun 2006 at 16:51

So youve done tools - options - homepage?

utah · 24 Jun 2006 at 16:53

yeah...

Kerplunk · 24 Jun 2006 at 16:56

Ok, then so when you say it "wont change" does it stay the same in the options?

Or does it re-generate back to what it was, little more info wouldnt go a miss.

utah · 24 Jun 2006 at 16:58

yeah it does, you click ok, close the options window then when you go back in its back to , global.acer.com or whatever. it doesnt do this in firefox, which i use, but i sometimes use ie and its bugging me!

Kerplunk · 24 Jun 2006 at 17:01

Start - Run - regedit

Open HKEY USERS

Open S-1-5-21-796845957-412668190-839522115-1004 (or similar, below S-1-5-20_Classes)

Software

Microsoft

Internet Explorer

Click Main once.

Then on the right side, look for START PAGE.

Double click START PAGE and type in what you want.

utah · 24 Jun 2006 at 17:05

it wont let me edit that for some reason? just comes up with error msg box when i try..

Kerplunk · 24 Jun 2006 at 17:06

utah said:
it wont let me edit that for some reason? just comes up with error msg box when i try..

Whats the error message mate?

utah · 24 Jun 2006 at 17:08

cannot edit start page: error writing the new value's contents

Kerplunk · 24 Jun 2006 at 17:10

You do have admin rights?

utah · 24 Jun 2006 at 17:17

would have thought so, its my computer and im the only one who uses it, ive got xp home anyway

nade · 24 Jun 2006 at 17:26

Does it work if you goto say, google.co.uk and click make homepage on the bottom of the page?

utah · 24 Jun 2006 at 17:34

erm, no. i tried that.

Kerplunk · 24 Jun 2006 at 17:48

Are there any partitions that may be hidden as there might be some hidden OS files installed somewhere?

utah · 24 Jun 2006 at 17:56

not sure, how u mean?

nade · 24 Jun 2006 at 17:57

One thing you could do, would be to reboot and use F8 and load up in Safe mode.

That way you could login as Admin and find the homepage entry in the registry as Kerplunk detailed above.

At least in safe mode, hopefully there should not be any possible sneaky program in the background stopping you from changing the homepage.

EDIT: Oh there is one solution that would be 100% effective.... try Firefox or Opera

utah · 24 Jun 2006 at 17:58

ok ill try that, its obviously somethng pesky acer have put on pc

nade · 24 Jun 2006 at 18:20

utah said:
ok ill try that, its obviously somethng pesky acer have put on pc

It's worth maybe searching acer's support site. I'm afraid i'm not that familiar with Acer PCs/Laptops so i'm not sure why you can't change it. But it's obvious they have got some program running that's stopping you changing it.

If you still have no luck trying safe mode, download a program called Hijackthis and run it with the report option. Once it's run it'll open notepad and you can copy the entire document and paste it into the box on the http://www.hijackthis.de website, which will look at the file and check your settings.

Good luck, let us know any outcome

bledd · 25 Jun 2006 at 02:32

nade said:
It's worth maybe searching acer's support site. I'm afraid i'm not that familiar with Acer PCs/Laptops so i'm not sure why you can't change it. But it's obvious they have got some program running that's stopping you changing it.

If you still have no luck trying safe mode, download a program called Hijackthis and run it with the report option. Once it's run it'll open notepad and you can copy the entire document and paste it into the box on the http://www.hijackthis.de website, which will look at the file and check your settings.

Good luck, let us know any outcome

was about to suggest this..

get it from merijin site

Berserker · 25 Jun 2006 at 02:43

There are certain parts of the registry that users (even admins) can't edit due to the way Windows sets the permissions on them. Seems odd that a manufacturer should set up an Internet Explirer key this way, but I guess they could have. Just needs fiddling with the offending registry key's security settings (which you can do in XP Pro without going into Safe Mode, but for XP Home you may have to).

I'll leave someone else to explain if this is the case because I don't fancy giving instructions at 2.43am and then finding out I've got them wrong and broken something.