IE Home Page Option Greyed Out

[Woody01]

I have a Windows 98 SE machine running IE 6 SP1. In Internet Options only two buttons can be used to set the Home Page..."Use Default" and "Use Blank". The "Use Current" button is greyed out. I haven't been able to find the right registry fix.

[mrwilhelm]

Have you tried repairing IE via Add-Remove Programs?

[NooNoo]

Sounds like you have a dropper or something similar... would it be too indelicate to what has set itself as the home page?

As for registry - this is a clean ie6 install and shows what it should look like with google set as the home page.

[Woody01]

To mrwilhelm: I didn't try because I wanted to see if I could figure out the registry fix.

To NooNoo: I got hit by a web site that I got to by misstyping Symantec (I left off the "c"). From that point I got redirected to another site which I quickly deleted everywhere and I don't remember the URL (it was nothing like www.symantec.com).
Your registry copy didn't help as my folder has many more entries. I couldn't tell which would have greyed out the "Use Current" button.

[NooNoo]

So what is the home page set to?

Have you tried resetting defaults in the tools options, advanced tab?

[mrwilhelm]

Sounds like your homepage got hijacked by Xupiter or similar unscrupulous net denizen. It also sounds like they don't want you to change it back (that would be typical behavior by these slimeball outfits).

These guys register thousands of URL's close in spelling to well known, frequently visited websites hoping for a typo. The user is then wisked away and the fun begins.

The problem with this is you could repair IE then Xupiter can reinstall itself and make the same changes after your next reboot. I would try downloading and installing Ad-Aware or similar spyware eradication app, get the offending keys cleaned out of your registry, then try and get IE back up to snuff.

[cyberhh]

There is a virus that locks the ie home page setting in the registry. Check symantec for the registry location.

[cyberhh]

Log in as administrator and reapply the basicws.inf security profile - c:\winnt\security\templates\basicws.inf - that should restore the PC to the original windows 2000 security settings - however if you are using FAT/FAT32 it may NOT work. However if you have vanilla security settings on the pc and have not made any changes this will work.

[cyberhh]

Launch REGEDIT (or better yet, PC Magazine's RegEdit+) and navigate to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\Control Panel\HomePage. Delete the HomePage key entirely and restart IE 5. For those who use IE 4, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Inte rnet Explorer\Control Panel and change the value named HomePage, setting its data to 0.

[mrwilhelm]

Give this a read.

There's all sorts of useful info there regarding the practice of browser hijacking. Everything from how to fix your current situation, to protecting yourself in the future.

[migel628]

You may want to try this utility that I found called Spybot. It basically tells you what spyware you have on your system & how to fix it. You can get it from:
http://spybot.eon.net.au/

It may not solve your problem, but it may help a bit...

[Masterpease]

You were right woody that website's a bitch. You've already been given the fix.

[Woody01]

Thanks for the suggestions. So far I have checked for a virus (Norton AV 2003)...none found: repaired IE 6 via the add/remove process; downloaded and run Spybot; and deleted the "home page" key (recommended by cyberhh). NO LUCK. I still can use the default home page (currently set as MSN) or use a blank page. I'm still checking out your suggestions.

[mrwilhelm]

Did you read the page I suggested? They had your scenario described down to a tee along with detailed instructions on how to repair it.

Sorry if I didn't make that clear earlier.