I.E. 6.xxx with stubborn home url

[chrispeterson]

Hi, fresh new Windows XP-PRO installed.
Downloaded and installed few freeware programs, those who were running in the previous windows without any problem.

Suddenly the Internet Explorer home page comes with a nasty search page, pointed by its IP instead of the name.

No matter I change the home url at IE options, when I reboot the machine and call IE there is the sticky search webpage.

What I did:

Set to "blank"
Call the home url "blank"
Clean all IE temporary files, locals also.
Clean all cookies
Clean all favorites

Went to Regedit, search that particular IP address and url name.
It was located in certain search entries.
Modify all those entries to "no"

Close everything and reboot.
Call IE, guess what? Sticky url as home page.

I guess it is some program that is being called during reboot.
I guess I need to go to msconfig and disable one by one until I find out who is changing the url home page at IE.

Any other ideas?

Thanks a bunch guys.

 

[T1junkie]

hmm Sounds like Spyware/Adware I can recomend 2 different Removers for Spyware/Adware>>

Pepi MK - Spybot S & D (http://www.safer-networking.org/)

Lavasoft - Ad-aware (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/)

Thy both have gotten good ratings

 

[chrispeterson]

I did run AVG and Adaware without no results. Unfortunately.

Today I downloaded FreshDiagnose and it reports IE, folder and page, search page = http://81.211.105.9/index.php?v=1 and that is exactly what appears at IE browser when I run it after reboot.

This is also what I modified to "no" at registry, but it comes back.

Interesting that I can't find anywhere at IE how to change the search page... getting blind I guess.

After clicking SEARCH at IE, it opens the left Search Frame, and there is "Customizie" button that leads to another screen where I can not see this search page = http://81.211.105.9/index.php?v=1 as stated by FreshDiagnose... it is seeing it, I can't.

Thanks a bunch,
Christina.

 

[chrispeterson]

Found how to change it but no where it changes it.
IE - Tools - Internet Options - Programs - Reset Web Settings.

After clicking the RWS button, FreshDiagnose report IE Search Page to be the regular Microsoft-blah-blah-blah.

Will reboot and see.

Cheers.

 

[chrispeterson]

update:

Disable all non regular Windows programs from the startup menu (msconfig), problem still.

No matter what, it still changing registry;

Internet Explorer
Main
Search page
Open page

to point to that IP above, during bootup.

Is there any way to trace a log of operations at registry during a certain period of time? Could I trace who is changing that particular entry at registry, when, who, etc?

Thank you.
Christina.

 

[chrispeterson]

update:

To change the registry, it needs Administrator logon, so, logging on with guest user, it can't change registry, and it doesn't.

It doesn't need to reboot the machine to it happens, just logging off and on administrator, it happens.

As all my desktop and computer setup was done under administrator user, yes I know, my fault, now it turns to be ugly to reset another user exactly as admnistrator.

Well, I guess creating another user and copying all the administrator setup would do, but problem is;

Creating another user account, it ask for a name, than press next, then it say I need first to create a least one administrator account, and it forces me to do so. I got confused. I am in an administrator account, so what it is complaining?

Ok, I did it, followed it recomendation and created another administrator account. It opened a new one, fully new, so I lost everything I had on the previous one. Then I could open a new user account, but no way to copy the old adm account since it can't be seen.

Went through system manager or so, could find all the accounts, including the old adm account. Deleted the new adm account, reboot, it brought back the old adm account, phew.

What a heck?

Can't I just create a new user account without going through all this mess and being able to copy the actual adm account setup?

I am starting to get nervous with XP-pro.
Lack of knowledge I guess.

Christina.

 

[BavarianWheels]

I get a similar problem when launching IE.

The home page is constantly changed to "www.wabu.com..." something like says "passthrough" and then eventually it ends up at my home page. my.yahoo.com

Also an annoying menu comes up at the bottom of the screen. A different window type thing. It is some kind of search tool and I cannot get rid of it. I've used S&D Spybot and it seems to work for a day or two, but it keeps coming back.