Member Avatar for ctlong

I cannot change the default homepage in IE using Tools --> Internet Options --> General. The address location is "grayed out" as are the three buttons below it (Use Current, Use Default, and Use Blank). How can I make these buttons active again?

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This is a common symptom: either a policy has been applied that locks the setting, or a hijacker/spyware has set a registry flag so Internet Explorer won’t let the user change the Home page. was right to suspect a hijack, and ’s report that a spyware scan cleared the problem matches the usual pattern. (learn.microsoft.com)

Quick troubleshooting order (do these in sequence):

  • Confirm whether the PC is on a corporate/domain machine. If it is, Group Policy can intentionally grey-out the Home page — contact the admin rather than removing keys.
  • Run a full, up-to-date antivirus/anti‑malware scan and remove anything it finds; malicious persistence often resets the setting at startup. (learn.microsoft.com)
  • Use Autoruns (Sysinternals) to look for persistent startup points, BHOs, scheduled tasks or DLLs that recreate the change — uncheck or remove suspicious entries. Autoruns is the right tool for hunting browser helper objects and startup hooks. (learn.microsoft.com)

If scanning and removing persistence doesn’t restore the control, Microsoft’s supported manual fix is to back up the registry, delete the Internet Explorer policy subtree under your user hive, then set the Start Page/Default_Page_URL values to the URL you want and reboot. Back up the registry (or create a restore point) before you edit anything. (support.microsoft.com)

Example (run as the affected user; or use Regedit if you prefer a GUI — back up first):

reg delete "HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer" /f
reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main" /v "Start Page" /t REG_SZ /d "http://www.example.com" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main" /v "Default_Page_URL" /t REG_SZ /d "http://www.example.com" /f

If the Home page returns after reboot, something still recreates the policy/value — hunt with Autoruns, check scheduled tasks, and re-scan with updated anti‑malware tools. If the machine is domain-joined, changes may be re-applied by Group Policy and should be handled by the administrator. (learn.microsoft.com)

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Member Avatar for )BIG"B"Affleck

Man IE is #1 .............Go to the page you want to have as a home page and drag the ICON beside the link and drag it to the HOUSE symbol.
Tell me if that fixes anything.

Member Avatar for ctlong

When I drag the icon next to the web address of some page I want to be the home page over the house symbol above, I get a circle with slash through it. Cant do it.

Member Avatar for )BIG"B"Affleck

WOW......legendary stability of IE......it seems that your browser might(suggestion) be Hijacked download www.mozilla.com its what I use never have any problems with it. or unistall IE and reinstall that crapp and post back.
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Member Avatar for ctlong

I downloaded Ad-Aware 6.0. Ran it and it found problems in the registry. I cleaned them and I was able to change the homepage. Gotta clean up my surfing habits. Thanks B.

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