Q: The title pretty much tells it all. I went to Internet options in the hope of clearing my cache, and instead get this error:
“This operation is due to restrictions in effect cancellation on this computer. Contact your administrator.”
The problem that I am the manager and I very much like me I thought maybe my firewall software, so I turned off. But the problem remained. After rebooting, the problem disappeared. I can not think of anything Ive done that has changed my security settings. Im still an “administrator” in the User Profiles section in the Control Panel. So I can not figure out how this law would have been lost.
Any ideas? Once I find out my cache is toast.
Re:All's well that ends well…….. I like that spybot has those options, to at least try and circumvent some new malware that may be written to hijack your home page, etc.
Re:Ok, the boxes that I used to lock myself out and confuse myself for 48 hours were:
In Spybot Seach and Destroy Advanced Mode (these boxes only appear in advanced mode, so be sure) – > Immunize – > under the box titled Recommended miscellanous protections, uncheck
- Lock IE start page setting against user changes (current user).
- Lock IE control panel against opening from within IE (current user)
Instructions for making yourself batty: Do the opposite of everything above
Re:The malicious Spyware was the Anti-Spyware I had installed and the evil hacker was me wow , alice . good trip through the mirror , ay ?
what were the unchecked boxes….just in case
Re:Thanks for everyone's help. I went to spywareinfo's forums and someone straightened me out in about 2 minutes. Literally. Great forum. Check 'em out if you get the chance (though hopefully you won't need to)
I locked myself out using Spybot Search & Destroy's Immunize feature.
I unchecked two boxes and – boom – done.
The malicious Spyware was the Anti-Spyware I had installed and the evil hacker was me 
Firebirt looks intriguing. Anyone else had any experience with it?
Re:Since IE dumped on you, maybe you ought to dump IE… Try Firebird (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firebird/)
Re:http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/hijacked/
Re:Before you go romping through the registry, maybe you should try something a little less… dangerous. If you make a mistake hopefully you know that you can seriously eff yourself up.
try this (http://www.ffmcobalt.com/iefix.htm)
Re:It sounds like you have some funny policies applied to your machine.
The registry entry that greys out your homepage in Internet Explorer is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Inte rnet Explorer\Control Panel\HomePage
Change it from 0×00000001 to 0×00000000 and restart IE and you should be able to edit the homepage.
Better yet, just delete HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Inte rnet Explorer and all of your IE limitations will be gone. Hope this hepls.
Re:Update. This thing keeps getting weirder.
Thanks for reminding me to run Spybot. It's been a couple of weeks. So Spybot did it's thing and I deleted a pesky bunch of spyware. I restarted. I tried reinstalling IE, but I still can't get to Internet Options from IE (gave me the error message), only through the Control Panel. In Internet Options, my homepage is still grayed out.
The thing is, it didn't hijack my homepage which is still the same. It has hijacked my ability to change my homepage and access Internet Options through IE. I usually am very careful about downloading stuff. I have no idea what is going on.
What should I be looking for under Group Policy Settings? I am assuming it is in User Configuration / Windows Settings, but I don't want to monkey around in there unless I know what I am doing.
Any suggestiongs?
Thanks for bearing with me
Re:Check your group policies too.
Re:Do you have Ad-Aware or Spybot S&D installed? If not, installed & run them. It sounds like you have a nasty spyware that hijacked your internet settings.
Re:Thanks for your input. Here's another development – I can navigate to Internet Options by going through the Control Panel in the Classic view. But when I open it up, the homepage options are grayed out and I can't change them. When I try to delete my cache, the system hangs forever….
Even if I can log in as Administrator, what would I change? Permissions?
Re:tryed logging in AS administrator ? at the login screen use ctrl-alt-del to bring up the option. or , if you don't have a password set for your regular login go to start\log off. that will take you to the login screen.
good luck
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