IE6 problems (up to date)

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IE6 is now behaving strangely. The two mainareas:
– sudden shutdown: About 2/day IE6 suddenly shuts down, asking whether I want to send an error message to MS.
– persistent toolbar: I have never installed the Yahoo toolbar, even though various websites seem to try to get me to do so. Yet it is present, unremovable and pushing my Google toolbar to a difficult-to-use location. It showed up in my add/remove software list, but when I tried to remove it, Windows said there was an error, so Yahoo is not present in my add/remove software list anymore — but it is still near the top of my web window. When I right-click or use the tools to set up the toolbar area, I can remove part of the Yahoo toolbar, but there is still approximately a screen-width version of it.

Any ideas on what to do to improve my internet explorer experience? Would upgrading to IE7 help, or would the crazy settings transfer over to it?

Thanks.

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You should upgrade to IE7 just for the better security. There are other improvements also. Unfortunately, as part of the upgrade process most settings are carried forward. Check some of the links at manually uninstall yahoo toolbar – Google Search for help on uninstalling the Yahoo toolbar.

Joe

--Joe

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Sorry – the manual approach does not remove the Yahoo toolbar.

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You should at least be able to get it not to show by going to View | Toolbars and unchecking the Yahoo Toolbar entry.

Joe

--Joe

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This was what I tried “early and often” (like voting in Chicago) to no avail.

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Try going to Yahoo, download and install the most current version. Then try uninstalling it.

Joe

--Joe

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That did it! You’re a genius!

Thanks for hanging in there.

[Now, if I can get an answer to my Windows XP question on that board ….]

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Hardly a genius and just glad you got it sorted out. Thanks for posting back that it worked.

Joe

--Joe

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Boy, am I in over my head. After the successful action above, I tried to upgrade to IE7, per your suggestion. The first time I tried it, I asked for this update and two others to be done and, after seeing no calls for myu interaction, I went to bed. In the morning, I found the pc hung in an attempt to reboot. [The previous day I upgraded IE6 to IE7 on my laptop, and I’m using that successfully now.]
When I forced a reboot (with the power button), things came up and worked reasonably well. That evening I tried again to install IE7, as I found IE6 was still the installed browser. It again proceeded without asking for my input (as the laptop installation had done), and I noticed it accessing my backup drive (an attached USB drive, which I write to automatically at 3 am each day); that was a surprise, but I let it run. In the morning, my pc was a total mess. When I tried to use the system restore, it disappeared. I suspected the MIONet that came with a Western Digital NAS device (that never worked, so I returned it), so I tried to remove it. Everything I tried did not work, including add/remove programs, the uninstall routine that came with the program, etc. In fact, after trying add/remove programs, e.g., I was not accessible again — the list was empty when I tried to access it again. Finally I rebooted in safe mode and used add/remove to remove MIONet. Now I have a stable system again, but …. Along the way above, a message appeared that a new network connection was found. I limited it to “internet” rather than “trusted,” and named it so I could identify it. I am now totally unable to access the Internet. When I looked through my connections, my former local network is not present and does not seem to be “addable.” The New Connection is there, with a broader IP address range (starting at 169.254.0.0 rather than 192.168.0.0). No connection is made to my router. And my browser is still IE6 rather than IE7. BTW: the usual approach of sequencing the way the cable modem > router > … are brought up does not affect my network access.

Any ideas?

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A 169.254 address is used when Windows cannot find any other network. It simply confirms that you cannot connect to your cable account. Does it work if you plug directly into your cable modem rather than the router? (Sometimes you have to power off the cable modem for a minute when switching the connection so it forgets the details of the last device that was connected.)

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I’m concerned that the problem is much more basic, given the craziness I experienced. For example, SpyDoctor often reported that a routine called TaskSwitch was detected; and asked whether it should be allowed to run. I answered “no” usually, but “yes” about the time the troubles started. I had a “recovered from serious error” message from Windows, and it was followed by a screen saying that the problem was with SpyDoctor. I removed Spy Doctor, as I suspect that my ZoneAlarm Security Suite covers what it covers (but I may be wrong).
The other deep concern I have relates to the trouble updating to IE7. The first attempt failed — I assumed that may have been because I wasn’t at the pc to respond to the questions that arose when I updated my laptop — so I tried again. That’s when I noted that, after starting from the MS site, I was not asked the usual IE7 installation questions and the installation was writing to the Z (my backup attached) drive. I was somewhat concerned, but let it run. In the morning, I found that the pc was hung on a re-boot, and after the re-boot the problems were evident. So I feared that my pc had been hijacked. I removed the Z drive, and am afraid to attach it to another pc (or even back to the original pc) because I fear that whatever happened might have written malevolent code that spreads or at least re-installs on any pc it is attached to. [The backup drive has some folders with long strings of “random” letters but one or two of these have been on the drive for some time, presumably put there by IOmega’s Backup Pro program.]

Clearly I’m in a quandry as to what to try. I’m running ZoneAlarm’s Virus and Spyware checkers now on the problem pc, with 10/25 definition files.

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If a PC has become polluted with spyware or malware, it often is difficult to fix over a discussion forum. If you have success with anti-spyware and anti-virus scans, that’s great and we can move forward. Even then, though, you might want to run Rootkit Revealer or other similar diagnostics to try to determine whether there is anything more sinister on the system.

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I ran the virus and spyware checkers on the two PC hard drives and the reattached backup external drive; no problems were found. The only rootkit checker I had on this pc is Sophos. It ran a complete check on all three drives (about 850 GB used) and found five “unkinown hidden files.” Its advice was to ignore them, but I removed three. One of the two I left was C:WindowsSystem 32dllcachekbdycc.dll .They all seemed inoccuous except for a restore line on my backup (external) drive, which looked like some system registry entries.

Even though system behavior now seems stable, I cannot connect to the internet. I tried connecting to various router ports and directly to my cable modem. The error message always is “Limited or no connectivity. You might not be able to access the Internet or some network services. This problem occurred because the network did not assign a network address to the computer.” Note that anything else I plug in does get the address and work. Also note that if I plug the pc port into 100 Mb/s or 1 Gb/s (switch) ports, the pc displays the correct speed, so an electrical connection is recognized.

Suggestions as to what to try next?

Thanks.

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For future reference, the problem was taken up under the Networking Your Home thread, under the title lost network connectivity.

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Thread closed for that reason. If anyone wants to react, please do so in the new thread.

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