ms ie6 hijacked?

[herb fellows]

Hi. I was on vacation in Maine and using the wireless connector at the place I was staying. All was fine for2 days, then the shtf.
I could not launch Ie6.
. I would click on it on the home page and it would do nothing.

I have spent dozens of hours on Google trying to figure it out, no luck.

I have another admin account, my wifes, that one is fine. I can create new admin accounts, with no problem getting into IE6.

I tried several restore points from all 3 accounts, willl not let me restore.
I tried stating in safe mode, it won't even let me click on a selection! I just have so much 'stuff' in my original user account, I would hate to give it up.

p.s. I have a tech I.Q. of about 50, on a good day! Please be gentle! THANKS~

Any and all help greatly appreciated.

[JR]

Did you try re-installing IE6 (or IE7 or IE8)?

JR

[crokett]

When you say 'could not launch IE6' does this mean you can't get it to run at all or you can't get it to connect to any home pages? If you can get it to at least start up, then try clearing cache, history, etc.

Are there any messages in Windows Event Viewer?

[Uncle Cracker]

I can't be specific, but I recall hearing something just yesterday about MS warning of yet another a critical security issue in IE that was suddenly being exploited by hackers in great numbers. I don't use IE, so it just went in one ear and out the other...

[dbhost]

Why are you still running I.E. 6?

[BobSch]

Why are you still running I.E. 6?

That was my first thought. Download Firefox and forget IE.

[tseavoy]

I switched to Mozilla Firefox a long time ago. I wish I could get MSIE out of my computer. I also use Mozilla Thunderbird for Email.

Tom

[Rich P]

The old "knee jerk", "try this" solution for unexplained browser behavior has always been to "clear the cache". It is not clear from your post if you can not launch IE (get it to run) or you can not get it to navigate to web sites.

If you install Firefox it will import all of your settings from IE.

I'm a former IT director who decided long ago I did not want to baby sit IE security problems at home and switched to Firefox after Netscape was abandoned by AOL. I do think things have improved a lot with MS but Firefox is rock solid for me. I do have IE in case I hit a site that does not work with Firefox.

[Uncle Cracker]

I do have IE in case I hit a site that does not work with Firefox.

Yeah, me too. I have to pay my health insurance premium on IE once a month, because UHC (the biggest health insurer on the planet, I think) won't make their administrative website Firefox-friendly.

[Jim Frye]

ActiveX is vunerable...

I can't be specific, but I recall hearing something just yesterday about MS warning of yet another a critical security issue in IE that was suddenly being exploited by hackers in great numbers. I don't use IE, so it just went in one ear and out the other...

MS admitted that ActiveX is open to allow someone to take over your system and make it a "bot" or anything else they want to do with it. It has been known for quite some time now, but they just publicly announced the problem. They still do not have a fix for the exposure. The only way to stop ActiveX is to do so in the registry file. That is tricky, but there is a workaround offered by MS that will let you turn ActiveX off and on.

Here's the URL to the notice. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sec...ry/972890.mspx

You can download two programs and then turn it off and on at will until they fix the hole in the code.

[herb fellows]

Thanks to all for your advice. I just downloaded Firefox, that part was certainly simple enough.

Being used to IE, it really looks weird the first time out!
I guess I'll be exploring it over the next few days.

[woodturner]

Thanks to all for your advice. I just downloaded Firefox, that part was certainly simple enough.

Yeah, there are some pretty significant shortcomings with Firefox - there is a reason it hasn't become "mainstream". Many sites will not work correctly with Firefox.

Upgrading to IE8 should solve the problem. If you are running Vista, it does not have that vulnerability - only older "obsolete" windows versions such as XP have the vulnerability.

[crokett]

Yeah, there are some pretty significant shortcomings with Firefox - there is a reason it hasn't become "mainstream". Many sites will not work correctly with Firefox.

I've used firefox almost exclusively for at least the last year. During that time it was exclusive when I ran Linux for several months. The only 2 sites I've found that don't work with Firefox are the Microsoft MSDN site for me to download MS software and just last night I discovered the Grizzly shop planner won't save a room in Firefox. Other than that I've had 0 problems. I love all the addons for Firefox and since I use 3 different machines on a regular basis, that it is easy to synch my profiles between them.

[Rich P]

So, IE8 finally got there and (OMG) we need to run Vista which has been a total bust for Gates and Co? And there are "significant shortcomings"? Where? Give me break.

[LCHIEN]

Microsoft says IE6 and IE7 have too many security problems to fix; they want you to go to IE8. This is the patch if you do automatic updates.