This morning I used my work partners computer to look up current jobs on the internet. I opened up his IE and much to my dismay his home page was set to some porn site. I think it is funny but the boss, not so much. I tried to reset his home page in the internet options, but when I re boot it goes back to the porn one. He has windows 2000. I have no clue on how to fix this problem. I'm not a complete computer moron, but should this not be a no brainer?
I have XP Pro and can pretty much fix everything.
Any thoughts?
PS.
It really is not me. 😕
Mike
Try getting Spybot Search & Destroy and Adaware. You can get them free from download.com. Sounds like the computer landed one of those pesky programs that are not a virus but through legal technicality deceived you into voluntarily downloading a program that does this.
The reason I suggest running both is while one might not catch certain programs, the other will.
Hopefully that should do the trick. Be advised, however, that this may wipe out cookies in the system as well. The primary focus of these programs is to disable anything that may broadcast information.
Yup. You got what's called SpyWare installed on your computer. It came bundled with something that was downloaded onto the hard drive, and will autmomatically reset your homepage. It has probably installed itself elsewhere in your system. Cardinal rule: don't DL anything if you don't completely trust the source. Since these things aren't viruses in the technical sense, a lot of firewall software (especially the Windows XP built-in firewall) is ineffective. If you don't know how to navigate through your system registry (START ---> Run ---> 'regedit" ) then just do as recommended above.
Originally posted by Poison GodmachineThanks, I will dig.
Yup. You got what's called SpyWare installed on your computer. It came bundled with something that was downloaded onto the hard drive, and will autmomatically reset your homepage. It has probably installed itself elsewhere in your system. Cardinal rule: don't DL anything if you don't completely trust the source. Since these things aren't viruse ...[text shortened]... rough your system registry (START ---> Run ---> 'regedit" ) then just do as recommended above.
er it's not mine.
Mike
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and RunServices are the places to check.
Don't mess with the registry unless you know what you're doing. I suggest exporting any hives/registry settings before modifying/deleting them.
With XP and 98 you have MSConfig, which can disable startup items safely.
2000 and XP, you'll want to disable the messenger service, as well as change the startup for any weird service that seems to have only one word.
Check Add/Remove programs to make sure that you Remove Golden Palace, WhenU, etc.
If you're using Gator, consider switching to Roboform. To remove all of Gator, you'll probably have to remove DateManager and some other clock software.
Originally posted by crythiasFYI, MS will be releasing a Service Pack through Windows Update (From Internet Explorer: Tools ---> Windows Update) in the coming weeks that will change this default and fix some other problems unrelated to this thread. Check it periodically...
2000 and XP, you'll want to disable the messenger service
