Spyware Sucks : Your questions answered

Vista x64 and Internet Explorer

sandi — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 02:13:10 GMT

I received this email today:

"I bought a 64 bit HP PC with Vista Home Premium and ie7 installed. When I was at a website to view something today it said I needed an Adobe plugin and directed me to Adobe. But Adobe said it did not have a 64 bit version and to use a 32 bit browser. After a bit of searching on the internet I finally got back to looking at programs on the new PC and found that there are 64 bit programs in the Prigram folder and 32 bit programs in the Program (x86) folder. And in each program folder there were ie7 programs. I suspect the desktop ie7 is 64 bit. So can I install a 32 bit version of ie7 from the x86 folder and thus have two versions of ie7?"

Vista x64 comes with two versions of Internet Explorer, a 32 bit version and a 64 bit version. The No Add-Ons version is simply the 32 bit version with a special switch added to the target path.

There is no need to install anything to get access to the 32 bit (x86) version of Internet Explorer. Simply run the correct executable. These are the target paths:

Vista (32 bit) = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe"
Vista (64 bit) = "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe"
Vista (No Add-Ons) = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" -extoff

I have also created a special shortcut that opens Internet Explorer in InPrivate mode:

Vista (32 bit) InPrivate = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" -private

I have added a shortcut for each version of IE, as well as a shortcut with the -extoff switch and the -private switch to my QuickLaunch bar.

My correspondent was right when he pointed out that there is no x64 version of Flash - Flash is not unique when it comes to this restriction.

Problem - unable to change Internet Explorer's home page

sandi — Mon, 05 May 2008 00:22:00 GMT

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

Problems with website certificates - IE7

sandi — Mon, 05 May 2008 00:17:00 GMT

Over the past few days I have seen a spike in the number of emails asking for help with website certificates. For example, two correspondents have written:

"Thanks for providing the information about problems with certificates of IE7 in your website. I tried to follow your instructions to access a secured site in IE 7 which I used to trust. I clicked on the Certificate Error button, and then the View Certificate link, but I could not find the Install Certificate link or button. Please advise."

and

"I admin a Citrix site that uses a SSL cert from verisign. We just renewed our cert. and I have a user running Vista and IE 7 who cant remove the old cert because the button is grayed out. After looking over your IE support site I was going to try lowering security to see if that works. The user claims he has admin rights to the PC."

Both users should run IE7 with Administrator rights (which is different to logging in to the computer as a local administrator). This is achieved by right clicking the IE7 icon, then selecting "Run as Administrator".

Google Desktop causing problems

sandi — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 00:03:00 GMT

Here is today's email question: "Dear Sandi, I would really appreciate your help. I've been trying for ages to find out what is wrong with my IE7 but there doesn't seem to be anything useful on the internet that I can find... Whenever...(read more)

Can you help? ie-vista reader asks for help with Flash buttons

sandi — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 00:23:00 GMT

I received this email overnight; it says: "I have been working on a website for a small company in the Isle of Skye, The website i have been working on is online but when viewing it in IE7, the sound files that are all on one page (4 of them, mp3's...(read more)

Unable to create Internet Explorer 7: Unspecified Error

sandi — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 00:16:00 GMT

Today's email question is: "I wonder if you can help me. When I try to save a web address in my Favorites in IE7 I get the error "Unable to create 'Internet Explorer 7': Unspecified Error". I'm using Vista Ultimate and not...(read more)

Can you help answer this question?

sandi — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 14:33:00 GMT

A reader asks:

"Have you ever seen IEMB3 in a user agent string? Any idea what it stands for?"

As much as I'd love to say I'm omnipotent and know the answer, sadly, this question has me stumped. Yes, I know, many of you are going to jump on to Google to find the answer, but for what it's worth, I don't believe the token is related to IE Mobile Browser, and I am not yet convinced that the token is indicative of some sort of trojan infection.

First, a short explanation of what the User Agent String is, and how it is composed.

A User agent String (UAS) is made up of various segments that reveal various bits of information about your Web browser, operating system and a few other bits and pieces. A typical UAS may be:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)

In the above example:

"Mozilla" equates to an "application name"
"4.0" equates to "application version"
"compatible" is a "compatibility flag"
"MSIE 7.0" is a"version token"
"Windows NT 6.0" is the "platform token"

To complicate things, there are many Windows components that can add tokens to the UAS, such as:

".NET CLR" which indicates the presence of the .NET Framework common language runtime
"Tablet PC" which indicates that Tablet services are installed
"Win64; IA64" which indicates the system has an Intel x64 processor
"Win64: x64" which indicates the system has an AMD x64 processor
"WOW64" indicates a 32-bit version of Internet Explorer is running on a 64-bit processor

Programs can also add tokens on their own behalf, for example:

"Infopath"
"Media Centre PC"
"FunWebProducts" {{{BOOOO!!!! says Sandi}}}
"ZangoToolbar" {{{BOOOO!!!! says Sandi}}}

Ok, so, bearing in mind all of the above, we can identify pretty much everything in the following User Agent String except, in this case, the token on the end, "IEMB3":

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; IEMB3

I had a quick chat to Dave Massy last night about the mystery token, but unfortunately nothing came to mind for him either.

Now, I know that some really smart people read this blog for light amusement {amusement being: "Heck, did she *really* say that? What the hell was she thinking???"} so who knows, maybe we can solve this mystery.

You can check your User Agent String by typing the following into your address bar in IE and then pressing enter:

(Edit: removed txt which was triggering alerts and replaced with PNG)

This is my UAS which you can translate using the information above. Why am I running a 32 bit version of IE on an x64 system? Because I have some essential add-ons that will not run on the x64 version of IE...

If you happen to discover that your browser's user agent string includes the token IEMB3, please send me an email and maybe we'll get this mystery solved.

Even better, if you already know the answer, please share (BTW, if you're wondering why I only use Yahoo emoticons nowadays, it's because they have transparent backgrounds and look much nicer... check out this comparison:

MSN smiley ((yuck))

Yahoo smiley

Interactive services dialogue detection error in vista

sandi — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 13:50:55 GMT

Tonight's email says:

"I realise you must be very busy however I have a message that continually arrives on my desktop every thirty seconds! I have no idea what to do and was hoping there was a simple fix? Because I am hoping there is a simple fix there probably isn’t. I am running Vista Business and Microsoft Office 2007 with Visio Professional. A screen print below shows the message."

Ok, so first of all, "c:\windows\system32\spoolsv.exe" is the print spooler. Yes, there are viruses out there that use may that file name, but they generally don't appear in that particular directory and the operating system is Vista Business, making me less inclined to assume malware of some type.

To confirm my suspicions, I'd check out the properties of spoolsv.exe. You can do this very easily in Vista. Simply type the path of the file in question into the Word Wheel search pane, then when the file appears, right click it and select Properties:

A quick and dirty diagnostic test is to prevent the printer driver from loading, whether by tweaking the system settings, or by uninstalling the printer, to see if the complained of error goes away. Assuming we confirm the problem is printer drivers, the first step is to update the relevant drivers installed on the computer. I'd hope that, by now, Vista specific or compatible driver will have been released for the printer in question. If not, well we've got a bit of a problem.

Coincidentally, Brad Rutkowski wrote about this very error back on 4 June 2007; you can find his blog post here:
http://blogs.technet.com/brad_rutkowski/archive/2007/06/04/services-and-session-zero-in-vista-and-windows-server-2008.aspx

Brad points to a document that explains the impact of session 0 isolation on services and drivers in Windows Vista, a change that is at the core of the problems our correspondent is seeing.

Your questions answered: Being charged for support calls

sandi — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:53:00 GMT

I received an email today that says:

"I have an issue that occurred once I upgraded to Internet Explorer 7 on my computer running Windows XP Media Center Edition. For some reason, I can no longer change the icon for any of my IE shortcuts that I have on my desktop. I know that this is not major issue but it is quite annoying as I customize my icons for both organizational and identification purposes.

I searched the Microsoft Knowledge base and Article ID: 935779: An Internet shortcut does not display the correct icon in Internet Explorer 7 was found. However, it tells me to contact Microsoft about a supported hot fix or to just wait until the next service pack comes out that contains this hotfix. Well, I called Microsoft and they actually wanted to charge me a support call to get someone to assist me with this because they stated that they no longer give out hotfixes.

I am sure that you know what I told them they could do with their charge. So, I was wondering if you had a resolution to this issue for me. This problem does not happen on my Vista computer or my other computer running Windows XP Pro both running IE 7."

Ok, let me put this as plainly as I can - the statement made by the person at Microsoft technical support that "they no longer give out hotfixes" is, to put it bluntly, bullshit.

With regard to an attempt to charge you for a support call this can be a little more tricky, and a lot depends on what you say when you call Microsoft.

When requesting a hotfix, it is very important that you tell whoever takes the call, right from the outset, that you are only calling to get a hotfix, and it is also very important that you know the hotfix number (in this case 935779).

You phone up and you say "My computer is exhibiting the symptoms described in Hotfix 935779. Please send me the hotfix".

Don't get into a discussion about the symptoms being exhibited by the computer. Don't ask for or accept any sort of troubleshooting assistance. Don't discuss any other issues. You phone, you ask for the hotfix, you tell them what the hotfix number is, you tell them that your computer's symptoms match those in the hotfix knowledge base article, and that is all that is as far as you go.

If the technician tries to discuss your PCs symptoms and tries to diagnose or troubleshoot, politely repeat that you are only calling to obtain the hotfix and you do not want any further assistance. The technician will probably warn you about the dangers of hotfixes and may read through a disclaimer statement but that should be that. You'll be asked for your email address and a link to download the hotfix will be sent to you.

Or, you can avoid all the fuss and request a hotfix by email from here:
https://support.microsoft.com/contactus2/emailcontact.aspx?scid=sw;en;1410&WS=hotfix

Your questions answered: Smartbridge Alerts problem when using IE7

sandi — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 00:25:00 GMT

How can I not answer the following plea for help?

"how do i get rid of smartbridge alerts , please it is driving me crackers."

I assume that the error the writer is complaining about is very similar, if not identical, to this:

"SMARTBRIDGE ALERTS: MOTIVE SB.EXE ENTRY POINT NOT FOUND

THE PROCEDURE ENTRY POINT GETPROCESSIMAGEFILENAMEW COULD NOT BE LOCATED IN
THE DYNAMIC LINK LIBRARY PSAPI.DLL"

Software that may trigger this error includes Exchange System Manager Help (Exchange 2000/2003) (note that the ESM embedded in Server Management Console is not affected), McAfee software, BT Broadband Help (BT Yahoo Help), Motive SmartBridge, Hal Screen Reader and Supernova Reader Magnifier by Dolphin.

The fix is to go to the installation location for the affected software.

Find PSAPI.DLL in the installation location for the affected software and rename it to something else, such as PSAPIOLD.DLL.

**Do not rename the PSAPI.DLL file in your \\Windows\System32 directory. **

Restart the computer.

Your questions answered: IE7 crashes when a window is closed

sandi — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 00:19:00 GMT

I received this email today:

"I use Vista. Each time I close an I.E. window I get a message that IE has stopped working and, eventually IE restarts when I want it closed, Can you help?"

If I were a betting person I'd put my money on an add-on - most likely a toolbar.

You have two options - run IE7 in no add-ons mode, or use RIES (Reset Internet Explorer Settings).

Information about RIES is here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/06/12/628499.aspx

If you decide to be more hands on and diagnose exactly what is going on, and try no add-ons mode, use the instructions below to troubleshoot the cause of your issue.

Troubleshoot IE7:
http://www.ie-vista.com/known_issues.html#tsie

If the problem goes away when using no add-ons mode, then you know your culprit is an add-on. From that point it is a matter of trial and error to track down what is causing a problem.

Blocking access to web sites (young children)

sandi — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:28:00 GMT

I received these emails from a reader:

Email one: "I have three small children who are getting more familiar with the web. I would like to restrict access to YouTube. I tried using the "restricted sites" section in ie by adding the address http://www.youtube.com/ to the restricted list. But that didn't work."

Email two: "BTW-Why doesn't the restricted sites section of IE work for YouTube?"

Ok, now bearing in mind that we're dealing with three small children here, not computer savy teenagers, there are a couple of things that you can do to quickly block all access to a particular web site that won't cost you anything.

First of all, the Restricted Sites Zone (Tools, Internet Options, Security) is not used to block access to Web sites. It is designed to restrict what a web site can do to your computer by turning off features such as javascript, file downloading, activex and scripts.

The following may need some experimentation to get the URL to be blocked correct - I haven't had a chance to go to youtube to double check things.

Map youtube.com to localhost (127.0.0.1) using the HOSTS file

The HOSTS file is a hidden file that is used to map web site URLs to IP addresses. A special characteristic of the file is that it has no file type extension (such as exe, doc, txt, bat etc). The HOSTS file has historically been used by applications such as web accelerators to pre-map web sites to IP addresses. Unfortunately, such tricks can break access to a web site if it's IP address happens to change, because the HOSTS file will not automatically change its settings to suit.

The HOSTS file is also sometimes used by malware to redirect victims to fake web sites.

The HOSTS file is stored in a different area of your computer, depending on your operating system.

Windows 95/98/Me = c:\windows\hosts

Windows NT/2000/XP Pro = c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Windows XP = c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

If you cannot see the HOSTS file you may need to change your folder settings to be able to view the file:

win95/85/ME (My Computer, View, Folder Options, File Types - turn on the option to view hidden files)

XP / Vista (Control Panel, Folder Options, View tab - turn on the option to view hidden files)

You may need to use an account with local administrator rights to view/edit the HOSTS file.

Open the HOSTS file using Notepad. You will see content similar, if not identical to, the following:

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

127.0.0.1 localhost

All you need to do to block access to youtube.com is add the following line:

127.0.0.1 youtube.com

Block access to the site using Content Advisor

A more complicated, password protected, alternative to the HOSTS file is Internet Explorer's Content Advisor. This is accessed from within IE via Tools, Internet Options, Content Tab, click on the "Enable" button. You will see an "Approved Sites" tab. Enter youtube.com as a "never" and you are good to go.

Don't forget to go to the General tab and select a password to protect your Content Advisor.

A WORD OF WARNING: There are instructions available on the Web on how to remove the password from Content Advisor, therefore as soon as your kids are savy enough to query the web they will be able to get around this protection.

Hardware router

Another possible alternative is a hardware router (if you happen to use one). Many routers have a built in firewall nowadays and you *may* be able to block access to sites using that - the router will have an web browser based control panel which you should make a point of protecting with a username and password.

Other alternatives

There is software out there that will allow you to monitor and control your children's internet surfing, but these MUST NOT be used as a replacement for parental supervision, guidance and mentoring.

Some sites that will help you keep your kids safe while they are online include:

http://www.getsafeonline.org/
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/kidzprivacy/
http://www.getnetwise.org/

Today's question - running IE6 and IE7 on the same machine

sandi — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 00:14:00 GMT

I received an email today that asked:

"Does MS have a method to run IE6 and IE7 on the same machine?"

There are a few hacks out there that purport to allow you to run IE6 and IE7 on the same machine, but they are just what I describe - hacks - all of which have problems.

As my readers may know, Microsoft offers Virtual PC as a free download to anybody who wants it. They also offer a VPC hard disk image containing a pre-activated Windows XP SP2, and either IE6 or IE7 and the IE7 Readiness Toolkit. This VPC image will expire on 17 August 2007 but I have no reason to believe that they will not issue a new VPC image once this one expires, just like they have done before.

You can download the VPC image here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B64-B5F1-73D0A413C8EF&displaylang=en

You can download your free copy of Virtual PC here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=04D26402-3199-48A3-AFA2-2DC0B40A73B6&displaylang=en

More info about Virtual PC:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx

Fix: display issue affecting IE7 and autoselect

sandi — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:32:00 GMT

I received the following email from a reader:

"I had an interesting email a few days ago from an IE7 user. He visited www.tigardchurch.org to find most of the text on the Home Page surrounded by “b’s”. I don’t own the site however; my wife is involved with keeping it current. I tested everything from: IE6, Mozilla Firefox to Adobe Safari and it all looked fine. I have held off loading IE7 for 1 yr after release and advised my clients to do so as well. Have you encountered this issue before?"

First of all, I argue strongly against recommending that people stay away from IE7 for "1 yr after release" unless there is a definite reason for deferring installation - that is, there is a line of business application that breaks, or an important Web site affected that you *must* be able to access, and even then I would consider it wiser to install an alternative Browser so that you can view the affected site rather than run the risk of continued exposure to the security exploits that affect IE6 and earlier and do NOT affect IE7. Of course, if a line of business application breaks, then that is something that may force you to defer installing IE7 until the application's vendor resolves the issue.

IE7 includes security updates and improvements that are simply too important to forgo without a good reason - IE7 has been immune to virtually every exploit that has affected IE6. Then there is the Phishing Filter, and Extended Validation Certificate support, and the Add-on Manager. Please don't hold off installing "just in case" or impose a stay-away timeframe.

Now, on to the Web site issues. I have been able to reproduce display problems for the site simply by toggling "Autoselect" under IE7's encoding options (tap the alt key on your keyboard if the Menu Bar is not enabled, then select View, then Encoding. You can turn off Autoselect there.

When I turn on Autoselect the page immediate refreshs and exhibits problems. When I turn off Autoselect and force a refresh of the page, the problem goes away. Examples below:

Without autoselect:

With autoselect:

Without autoselect:

With autoselect:

Unfortunately I simply don't know enough about Web page design and coding to be able to tell you how to fix this. Quick and dirty fix is to advise visitors NOT to enable the Autoselect encoding option, but the site's owners should also have a chat to somebody wiser than me about how to fix the issue, and whether the issue is with IE7 or the site itself.

Your questions answered: sourcing hotfixes

sandi — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 09:50:00 GMT

The question is:

"I am currently using IE7 in Vista. Clean install. However, I keep running into issue KB 936904 and it is very frustrating. I checked the MS website (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/936904) for a downloadable patch but could not locate it. Could you please tell me how I can get this fix? "

The Knowledge Base article is quite clear. It says:

"A supported hotfix is now available from Microsoft. However, it is intended to correct only the problem that is described in this article. Apply it only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix may receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next service pack that contains this hotfix.
To resolve this problem immediately, contact Microsoft Customer Support Services to obtain the hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Customer Support Services telephone numbers and information about support costs, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support

Note In special cases, charges that are ordinarily incurred for support calls may be canceled if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that a specific update will resolve your problem. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for the specific update in question."

Pay particular attention to the section in bold, yellow and underlined.

If you phone Microsoft support, and tell them that you want the Hotfix in KB article number 936904 (or any other hotfix) **AND ASK FOR NO OTHER SUPPORT** then you should not, and will not, be charged for the cost of the call.

When I phone Microsoft I simply tell them that I have a computer affected by the issues described in KB number whatever, and can I please have the hotfix. They may ask a couple of questions but they will invariably send me the hotfix. I have *never* been charged for such calls, and an email with instructions on how/where to download the hotfix is always received very quickly.

Microsoft Access ODBC drivers for Vista x64

sandi — Thu, 10 May 2007 22:10:00 GMT

What *did* I get myself in for when I decided to do this answering support emails via blog thing They say that variety is the spice of life but wow, talk about getting questions from all over the shop.

Here is today's question - sent to me via www.ie-vista.com and totally unrelated to Internet Explorer, but what the heck...

"I didn’t know if you could point me the right direction or not but I am trying to load Microsoft access ODBC drivers and not having any luck with the 64 bit version of vista. The only option I get is for SQL Server and I am not having any luck finding anything on Microsoft’s site on how to get these drivers installed."

Ok, there are two copies of odbcad32.exe on Windows Vista x64, one is stored at c:\windows\system32\ and one is stored at c:\windows\syswow64\. Our correspondent needs to run c:\windows\syswow64\odbcad32.exe

Here is a screenshot of c:\windows\system32\odbcad32.exe

Here is a screenshot of c:\wndows\syswow64\odbcad32.exe

FIX: IE is stuck at the Runonce page and weird squares and circles on taskbar buttons

sandi — Thu, 10 May 2007 07:53:00 GMT

Today's email says:

"I'm having trouble getting my home page (MSN.com) to open up when I hit my explorer start up button. I get a strange "run once" reference up in my address bar. I end up having to type in WWW.msn.com to get the home page to open. Then, at the bottom of my screen where the websites that are open are typically indicated, I get only the blue explorer "e" icon followed by 9 or do [sic] little square boxes and three dots. I just installed IE 7 on this Sony Vaio desktop from the MS download site a week or so ago."

Possible causes of the RunOnce problem are:

The Welcome page does not load completely for whatever reason.
Scripting has been disabled (note: blocking ActiveX does not cause this problem)

In such circumstances, the DWORD "RunOnceHasShown" may not be created in the following registry key, or it may not be set to a value of 1.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\RunOnceHasShown

If your system is stuck at the initial IE7 welcome page, shut down IE, check for the existence of the RunOnceHasShown DWORD and set it to a value of 1.

Also, ensure that the following key is set to 1:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\RunOnceComplete

and

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\SearchMigrated

Also make sure you disable anything that may prevent IE from writing to the registry such as anti-malware applications before trying to install IE7:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/10/11/IE7-Installation-and-Anti_2D00_Malware-Applications.aspx

Now we shall look at the "9 or do [sic] little square boxes and three dots"

Shut down IE then go to Control Panel, Display Settings and reset your system to an default XP scheme/appearance.

If that doesn't work, try running IE7 in no add-ons mode - does the problem go away? If so, you need to look at what toolbars and other add-ons you have installed, disabling or uninstalling them one at a time until you find the culprit - one that has been reported as being problematic is Stopzilla, a pop-up blocker.

Still no luck? Check these things:

Tools, Internet Options, Languages button. Make sure that the correct language is installed. Eg, if you are in the USA, you should be running "English (United States) [en-us]".
Check your computer's regional settings (Control Panel, Regional Settings)
Check your encoding options (Press the Alt key, then select "View", then "Encoding" on the Menu Bar that will appear). My systems are set to Unicode (UTF-8) although Western European (Windows) or (ISO) are fine. I try to avoid Auto Select which has been problematic in the past.
Of course, for English speaking countries, "Left-to-right document" should be selected.
RIES sometimes helps with weird symptoms (Tools, Internet Options, Advanced tab - down the bottom).

Now *if* none of the above works, it is possible that there is a corrupt font on the computer in question, but if that is the case I would expect that more areas on the computer may be affected.

FIX: Can't access sites that use a password

sandi — Wed, 09 May 2007 11:38:00 GMT

This person has been in touch with me a couple of times but I've not been able to respond.

"The problem is I am unable to access ANY websites that require a username and password. After I put in the username and password and hit enter - it just loops back around to the same page where I entered my username and password - except that it is blank again - meaning my username and password are not there. I never get error messages on any of the sites - it just loops back around. I first noticed it when I tried to log on to www.yahoogroups.com I thought maybe it was just yahoo, but EVERY site that required a username and password did this with the EXCEPTION of my bank. I have continued to be able to access that site. After contacting AOL (my ISP) 4 times, the 5th person finally told me to contact Dell since I have a Dell Desktop. I was on the phone with him for 3 hours. He told me, after going through and discovering that all of IE7 defaults were in the correct position, to contact AOL again - why I don't know, but I did as I was told. I contacted AOL and one person told me to contact Qwest - who provides my high speed service but NOT to mention that I have AOL as my ISP or they would send me back to AOL to fix it. That somehow didn't fly with me, but I called QWEST anyway only to discover he had given me the wrong number. I called AOL again and obtained the correct number. QWEST said that all of my DSL connections were okay and that I needed to contact Microsoft. I did and they wrote back and gave me several ways to get an answer to my question without the need to go through the paid service which is, as you know, contacting Microsoft by phone. This is how I got to you. I can't remember at this point how exactly I got to you - they didn't give me your website or anything, but here I am. When I didn't hear back from you - I attempted to go to the newsgroups which you had given instructions for on your website. I signed in with my Windows Live ID and was able to read everything, but am unable to ASK a QUESTION!!!!!"

Wow, talk about being bounced around... from AOL to Dell... from DELL back to AOL again...told to go to QWEST, then back to AOL, then back to QWEST, then to Microsoft then to me. Is it any wonder people get so frustrated?

The user mentions IE7, so we can assume he is using Vista or XP but we don't know the name of the bank, so can't examine the site to see what protocols are used for log-in. We can, however, assume that it's a secure site, which rules out some possible problems. I'm not sure how "PC literate" our correspondent is, so we'll keep things easy and revisit if things don't work out.

Try one fix at a time - restart IE and test after every fix.

Delete all autocomplete data (tools, delete browsing history option, delete forms data and passwords and cookies).
Try running IE7 in no add-ons mode - if that fixes the problem, disable third party add-ons and toolbars one at a time until you work out what's causing the problem:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/07/25/678113.aspx
If that doesn't work, try resetting IE7 Settings (RIES) (which basically repeats the above steps and resets all IE settings to defaults).
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923737

If the problem continues:

Verify that the Protected Storage Service Is running

Click Start, and then click Run.
In the Open box, type Services.msc, and then click OK. The Services snap-in appears.
In the Name list, locate Protected Storage. Note the Status column. If Protected Storage is running, Started will appear under Status.
If Protected Storage is not started, start it. To do this, right-click Protected Storage, and then click Start. The Protected Storage service starts.
If Protected Storage is started, stop and then restart it. To do this, follow these steps:a. Right-click Protected Storage, and then click Stop.
Close the Services snap-in.

If things still aren't working there may be a corruption of the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\IntelliForms\SPW. It might be worth exporting then deleting that particular key (just the SPW folder). To export the key, right click the SPW folder and select "export" and save it to the desktop. Then, if the problem is not fixed you can simply run the file to put it back.

If still no joy, we have to look at potential malware or spyware infection - troubleshooting advice here:
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/tshoot.html

FIX: Unable to access particular web sites

sandi — Wed, 09 May 2007 07:26:00 GMT

This morning I received this email:

"For the past two plus years, I have been able to access a website www.bmwsporttouring.com. For the past two weeks, I cannot access this website from my desktop computer (high speed internet). We also have a laptop and we can access it from the laptop only.

We saved this site as a favorite. When we click on the favorite in the lower left hand corner of the tool bar we see “connecting” http://www.bmwsporttouring.com...” and then we get the page cannot be displayed. We are connected and the website is not encountering any problems. When we type in the url: www.bmwsporttouring.com we get the same reaction. We restored the pc to the point that we were last able to access this site and still no luck."

Ok, first thing to do. Make sure the site works (yep it does)

Next, see if you can access it via IP address. Go to Start, Run, type "CMD" (without the quotes) to open a command prompt window.

Now type "ping www.bmwsporttouring.com" (without the quotes). This will get you an IP address - you will see this in the command window:

Pinging bmwsporttouring.com [207.191.183.137] with 32 bytes of data

Now, open IE and enter 207.191.183.137 into the address bar - can you access the site using the IP address? If yes, you most likely have a problem with a hidden file called a HOSTS file. This is a hidden file, so you will need to turn on the option to view hidden files (Control Panel, Folder Options, View - turn on the option to view hidden files and folders)

Depending on your operating system, and a few other variables, you may find the HOSTs file in the following locations (note that %systemroot% is c:\windows\ on a standard machine):

%systemroot%\
%systemroot%\system\
%systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc (NT based systems such as XP)

Embedded OS such as WindowsCE use the registry:
(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Comm\Tcpip\Hosts\host name)

Why did the user experience this problem?

The most common cause of this problem that I have seen is Web accelerators that use the HOSTS file to create the illusion of faster web browsing can actually cause problems rather than speed things up.

Programmes that use the HOSTS file to speed things up have one basic flaw - they work by recording IP addresses saving you that millisecond that it takes for your Web browser to convert a URL to an IP address. If the IP address of a Web site changes for any reason you can no longer get to the site until the recorded IP address is updated in the HOSTS file (which invariably does not happen).

What else can go wrong to cause the "page cannot be displayed" error?

Do not use the "Automatic" cache setting in IE (IE Tools, Internet Options, General Tab, Browsing History/Temporary Internet File settings). The way the "Automatic" setting works is IE monitors how often a web page is updated. But, there is a bug in the feature in that IE will eventually decide, seemingly at random, that a page is never updated and stops checking.

Check your IE cache size. Traditionally Internet Explorer has set the size of its cache as a percentage of total hard disk size. That was fine years ago, but now that hard drives are getting so large Internet Explorer can set its cache to ridiculously large sizes (2 Gig and more). This is simply too large for Internet Explorer to be able to handle. Reduce the size of your IE cache to around 50 Meg (maximum of 150Meg) and empty your existing cache (make sure you also delete offline content).

One more thing that may work:

Try running the following command from a CMD window:

ipconfig /flushdns

Lots more advice for pre-Vista operating systems here:
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/answers/16.html

FIX: Copy and past is not working.

sandi — Tue, 08 May 2007 22:03:00 GMT

I received a request for help via email yesterday. It said:

"The PC @ my parish office has decided to mess up. Copy and Paste are not working. It all started last week on Friday – not sure why. AV is up to date. The Paste option is greyed out on many menus."

I have not seen this problem for years, certainly not since the days of WindowsME. In this case it was a Windows XP machine that was affected. The traditional fix, running the command "regsvr32 ole32.dll" (without quotes), did not work. So, I tapped into the MVP-Borg collective and found a fix (thanks Bill Castner) which was to run Ramesh Srinivasan's "IEFIX":
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/IEFIX.htm

Be warned though, apparently there has been a run of machines exhibiting the copy and paste problem which have been infected by a particular malware called "advertmen", which installs a DLL called "pushow**.dll" (where * = a random number).

Info about advertmen here:
http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2006-050812-0313-99&tabid=1