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Sony Hijacking IE7 Homepage?

God
Grafter
Posts: 1,112
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Sony Hijacking IE7 Homepage?

A pal of mine has a problem (no really, it’s not me it is a pal!) with I.E.7 on a Sony Vaio laptop.
IE7 defaults to a Sony page, the Sony club or some such. It also appears that if you go to any other page with any problems you are instantly whisked back to this club page.
Anyway, I have run him through: Tools/internet options/homepage/use-blank/apply/ok But explorer reverts back to this club page.
Surely Sony hasn’t permanently hijacked the homepage on their computers? And if they have how should I get rid of it? Do I need to change a registry setting?
Thanks in anticipation of sage advice.
19 REPLIES 19
orbrey
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 10,540
Registered: ‎18-07-2007

Re: Sony Hijacking IE7 Homepage?

Did you set his home page to "use-blank" or "about:blank" ? AFAIK it has to be the latter to work.
As for the Sony stuff, it's probably branding that's doing this. Yes, it probably will be a registry setting but running the following from a shell or the run box should sort it:
rundll32 iedkcs32.dll,BrandCleanInstallStubs

Hope this helps,
God
Grafter
Posts: 1,112
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Sony Hijacking IE7 Homepage?

I got him to press the 'use blank' button which inserts about:blank as the home page.
I will get on the blower and see if the de-branding willl sort it out.
Cheers
God
Grafter
Posts: 1,112
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Sony Hijacking IE7 Homepage?

Still the same apparently... I also tried getting him to set the dafualt to another page (bbc news) after closing and opening again it went straight back to Sony!
I will have to get hold of the laptop... I suppose at worst I could reinstall IE7.
Oldjim
Resting Legend
Posts: 38,460
Thanks: 787
Fixes: 63
Registered: ‎15-06-2007

Re: Sony Hijacking IE7 Homepage?

Just a thought - he hasn't got Lavasoft Adaware running with Adwatch set to automatic as this stops changes to the default page without asking.
God
Grafter
Posts: 1,112
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Sony Hijacking IE7 Homepage?

It would be a straight Sony install I believe. but a good point. When I can get my hands on the machine I will see what else he has running!
Peter_Vaughan
Grafter
Posts: 14,469
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Sony Hijacking IE7 Homepage?

Sounds like sony may have added a BHO (browser Helper Object) which resets the default home page.
If you are not familiar with finding and removing these then the following page should help: http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/hijacked/
God
Grafter
Posts: 1,112
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Sony Hijacking IE7 Homepage?

More Like a Browser Hinderer Object  Grin
Thanks for that Peter I will take a look.
MisterW
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 14,573
Thanks: 5,408
Fixes: 385
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Sony Hijacking IE7 Homepage?

On an ever so slightly related but interesting note, have you seen
http://www.ie7.com/.
Amusing Grin

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

metman
Dabbler
Posts: 23
Registered: ‎06-04-2007

Re: Sony Hijacking IE7 Homepage?

Quote from: God

IE7 defaults to a Sony page, the Sony club or some such. It also appears that if you go to any other page with any problems you are instantly whisked back to this club page.

Does spybot IE tweaks work on IE7 which allows you to modify hidden IE settings.
Spybot - tools - IE tweaks
God
Grafter
Posts: 1,112
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Sony Hijacking IE7 Homepage?

I will have to wait until I can get the PC before I try anything else the owner isnt really PC literate enough to attempt anything other than a simple dialouge box change.
If Sony have hi-jacked the page so you cant change it then that really sucks in my opinion.
gary
Grafter
Posts: 108
Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: Sony Hijacking IE7 Homepage?

I really hate PC branding .... squat, format, put windows/debain disc in and strart again  Cheesy
Mind you, I bet if you install a decent virus checker on it, it will pickup the branding software as a virus  Wink
gary
Grafter
Posts: 108
Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: Sony Hijacking IE7 Homepage?

Quote
Mind you, I bet if you install a decent virus checker on it, it will pickup the branding software as a virus

If thats what it is ofcourse.... it would seem very strange for sony to forcably re-direct the homepage back to their site. I think the sort of thing "Oldjim" is referring to might carry the answer... especially if something like "norton" is installed which is highly possible on a straight from the shop PC.
Hope that helps.
iainmacmillan
Grafter
Posts: 105
Registered: ‎09-08-2007

Re: Sony Hijacking IE7 Homepage?

Quote from: Peter
HijackThis will presumably take care of it as well

yes it will, it will list all BHO files, and allow them to be removed.
alternatively, you can go to Tools->Manage Add-ins->Enable/Disable Add-ins.  First one to nuke is the SSVHelper Class.  This combined with Sybot's Immunise can cause major headaches with HTML messages with Outlook 2000/2003 - major slow downs.
Only fix is to remove Spybot to stop Outlook freezing, the undo fucntion only works for a few days, before some automated process kicks in and starts doing it all over again.
tbh, use Firefox, its an incredible browser.
Oldjim
Resting Legend
Posts: 38,460
Thanks: 787
Fixes: 63
Registered: ‎15-06-2007

Re: Sony Hijacking IE7 Homepage?

Re Outlook 2003 slowing right down.
One way to fix it is to start Outlook with the "Outlook Today" Page.