Guy’s Best Practice & Litmus Tests Ezine #29 – Registry Hacks for Internet Explorer.This weeks ezine tackles virus attacks on your Internet Explorer. My main emphasis is on using Regedit to solve annoying problems in the registry. These are my 3 objectives for this ezine.
Guy Recommends: The Free IP Address Tracker (IPAT)Calculating IP Address ranges is a black art, which many network managers solve by creating custom Excel spreadsheets. IPAT cracks this problem of allocating IP addresses in networks in two ways: For Mr Organized there is a nifty subnet calculator, you enter the network address and the subnet mask, then IPAT works out the usable addresses and their ranges. For Mr Lazy IPAT discovers and then displays the IP addresses of existing computers. Download the Free IP Address Tracker Scenario: Your homepage is locked in Internet Explorer.The problem is that your Internet Explorer’s menus have been locked. You can no longer set the home page, or worse, you cannot open the Tools (Menu) Internet Options.. This happened to me not once, but three times, so the chances are that you could be affected sooner or later. ‘Use Current’ Greyed out.The problem "HomePage" When you try and change Home page Address, unfortunately, ‘Use Current’ is greyed out. Causes If you experience this IE problem at your office, then it is possible that that your network administrator has a group policy in operation; if so, the chances are that their group policy will also forbid registry changes. Where there are no group policies in effect, then I would suspect a Virus attack, those menu’s do not just ‘Grey out’ of their own accord. The solution Open Regedit and navigate to ‘HomePage" by tracing this path: Note: this is a job for HKEY_Current_User (not HKLM). HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Control Panel] "HomePage"=dword:00000000 Just to be clear, 1 = lock, "HomePage"=dword:00000001 Whereas, 0 (zero) = unlock "HomePage"=dword:00000000 In my opinion, the only use of "HomePage"=dword:00000001 is for testing the problem. .Reg FilesYou may know that you can make changes to the registry by double clicking or merging .reg files. These are .reg files ordinary text files with the path and keyword(s) necessary to change the registry without blundering about with with regedit. Here is a .reg file that will enable your ‘Home Page’. Here is the .zip version to enable your ‘Home Page’ (You do not need both) Internet Explorer Tools (Menu) lockoutProblem "NoBrowserOptions" The situation is this, in Internet Explorer, you wish to alter the Internet Options however, all that you get is an error message saying : This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer.
Causes If you are at work, then perhaps your Administrator really has a group policy which stops you changing your options. In that case, the chances are that the group policy will also forbid registry changes. Alternatively, if you are at home the problem may be due to Microsoft Plus! for Kids 1.0. However, in my case I believe it was a virus, for example TABER Solution Again you need to make a registry change. One way of finding the right place in the registry would be to the Edit (Menu), Find : NoBrowserOptions (Type). This "NoBrowserOptions" option is controlled by a different section of the registry. Note the word \Policies HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions "NoBrowserOptions"=dword:00000000 Once again the logic is 1 = Locked, 0 = unlocked. See more Windows browser registry tips. .Reg FilesYou may know that you can make changes to the registry by executing or merging .reg files. These are ordinary text files with the path and keyword necessary to change the registry without trawling through with regedit. Here is a .reg file that will Unlock your Internet Explorer Tools, Options. Here is the .zip version. to Unlock your IE’ (You do not need both See more on the Registry – Whole Section here See more registry articles• E 124 Learn Registry • E 118 Vista Registry • E 107 Reg • Free Syslog Server • E 84 Reg • E 68 CMOS • E 7 Reg • E 6 Reg • Registry •IP Address Manager • Ezines • Windows 8 Registry Hacks • Windows 8 .Reg Examples • Config Generator • PowerShell Registry |