Problem – unable to change Internet Explorer’s home page

Another cry for help received via email…

“You are my last best hope…  I am just a regular guy from NY (not the city) with a problem.  My homepage in IE7 is locked on a page I dont want.  I try to change it in Internet options and it even says the homepage I want but it always goes to this other page. I set the page a month ago and now it wont go back.  I even reinstalled IE7 but no luck. Any ideas?  I can even send you a few bucks if you can help me out…“

Manufacturer/ISP Locking

Some computer manufacturers and suppliers of internet access set IE to their choice of home page and lock this setting via the registry. Hijackers use the same trick. The locking is done using registry settings as per the following:

Home Page Setting Changes Unexpectedly, or You Cannot Change Your Home Page Setting (Q320159)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q320159 

Specific registry settings affected are:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Control Panel] – DWORD “HomePage”=dword:00000001 (grays out the whole section)

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] – DWORD “NoSetHomePage”=dword:00000001

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions] – DWORD “NoSetHomePage”=dword:00000001

Protective software

Check your protective software (especially antispyware and antivirus).  Spybot Search and Destroy, for example has a feature that will lock your home page.  Other products that may lock your home page including Ad-aware’s Ad-Watch, SpywareBlaster, SpySweeper, Norton AntiVirus, McAfee VirusScan and Antispyware, and both versions of Zone Alarm.

If you are using Spybot S&D, check your ‘Immunize’ settings which may be locking your home page.
 
Malware and viruses

If your computer home page is set to about:blank against your wishes, or any other page, you have a malware problem. For advice on fighting malware, check out the link below – the page is a little old, and probably needs updating, but overall the advice is still good:
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/tshoot.html