IE redirects to FireFox

[rcaspi]

Hi,
My computer developed an interesting problem.

I have both IE and Firefox installed, but almost always use Firefox. However, every once in a while I must use IE.
Last time I tried to use it, I found the following problem:

IE starts OK. Meaning, the home page loads fine. Now, if I type in a new url in the address bar, or if I select an existing bookmark, the new site opens in Firefox! If firefox is not running, it will start and load that url. IE itself won't load any new page.

I uninstalled Firefox to see what would happen. Under this condition typing a url into IE results in an error message: Can't find application (or something similar).

Looked it up on the web, found several such reports, but no solution. Does anyone have any idea what is going on? I suspect its a virus of some sort, but didn't find anything unusual in the Hijack This log. Norton also doesn't find anything.

Any help is highly appreciated,

Ron

[PhilliePhan]

Hi Ron,

This issue is more common than you think.

http://blog.codefront.net/2006/03/19/how-to-fix-ie-always-opening-firefox-instead/

Let me know if you still have problems or are uncomfortable hacking the registry.
Otherwise, I trust you can mark this thread as Solved.

Cheers :)
PP

[rcaspi]

Hi PP,

I can't tell you how overjoyed I was when I read your response.
I immediately deleted the key from the registry, and checked. Alas, the problem persisted! Even worse, the key appeared back in the registry upon rebooting the system.

In addition, I found that dozens of entries in the Registry refer to that entry.
For example, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{000214E5-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\ProxyStubClsid32 has a value of {C90250F3-4D7D-4991-9B69-A5C5BC1C2AE6}.

However, following your link, I realized that the problem apparently stems from an unsuccessful installation of IE7 side by side with IE6, where many IE7 specific keys remain in the Registry and confuse IE6. It is true that I once tried to upgrade to IE7, failed, and eventually uninstalled it and reinstalled IE6. But this was at least a couple of years ago, and the problem started only about two weeks ago! I have no explanation, but I decided to update IE6 to 7 and hope for the best. This time IE7 installed fine, and the problem is gone!

Thank you for the tip, it lead me in the right way.

Ron

[PhilliePhan]

But this was at least a couple of years ago, and the problem started only about two weeks ago!

Hi Ron,

Glad you were able to get it sorted out!

I used to have a much better link that provided for a number of contingencies, but that site seems to have gone belly-up. I think the issue (at the time) was traced back to a couple files and I would imagine MS has since dealt with the problem, but I could be wrong.

PP :)