Can't search

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  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

WinXPro SP2, IE6 & Firefox. ( also AVG, Zonealarm. )
Regardless of search page - MSN, Yahoo, Google etc, I am unable to place the
cursor in the search box, or type anything in. The dropdown shows previous
entries, but unable to add. Have tried uninstalling/reinstallling, patching,
but no effect. Was working, but stopped after crash. Now unable to repair.
Any ideas?
 
See these articles for possible help:

Cannot Type Text in Outlook Express or Internet Explorer
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q235236

Delayed Response When Editing Internet Explorer Forms and Outlook Express
May Take a Long Time to Start
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q251787/

If no joy, try resetting your Search to it's defaults:
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/answers/42.html - bottom of the page

If still no joy.....

This may be caused by spyware/malware that's gotten installed on
your system. Use Ad-Aware, MSAS and/or Spybot Search & Destroy to remove
it.

Microsoft Anti-Spyware (beta)
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx
Ad-Aware: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
Spybot: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
Good sites on how to install and use Spybot -
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/tutorial/index.html
http://tomcoyote.com/SPYBOT/index1.php

Also download a winsock repair tool, to have just in case cleaning up
anything found breaks it -

Winsock repair tools:
LSPFix- all versions of Windows http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.zip
Winsock2 Fix- Win98, ME
http://www.bu.edu/pcsc/internetaccess/winsock2fix.html
LavaSoft- all versions of Windows-
http://digital-solutions.co.uk/lavasoft/whndnfix.zip

More information here:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/tshoot.html
http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/ - runs a little script when loading page to
check for common parasites

If no joy, in IE go to Tools...Internet Options...Advanced tab, Browsing
section, uncheck "Enable third-party browser extensions", click Apply, click
Okay, reboot. If that solves your problem, then more troubleshooting is
needed to find out exactly which program, or Browser Helper Object (BHO) is
causing this problem. You don't want to leave it at that, as some BHOs are
useful or necessary - like Adobe Acrobat for reading .pdf files or an
essential component of Norton AV. Get BHODemon -
http://www.definitivesolutions.com/bhodemon.htm - read all about BHOs.
Disable all items, and then gradually replace one or two at a time to narrow
down the culprit.

Or if you have IE 6 SP-2 you can do this within the browser:
How to manage Internet Explorer add-ons in Windows XP Service Pack 2
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;883256

If all the above fails, then the problem could be something new that the
spyware cleaners above don't have in their databases yet. In that case....
HijackThis direct download:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/hijackthis.zip
Tutorial on how to use HijackThis:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/htlogtutorial.html
Then post it's output log to the forum here for analysis and feedback by the
parasite experts:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/forums/
Or the other HijackThis Logs forums listed here:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/forums.html

Or try this program to get some of the most nasty malware:
CWShredder direct download:
http://aumha.org/downloads/cwshredder.zip

An alternate resource for all of this and more:
http://www.aumha.org/secure.htm
 
Hi hobbit :-)

Try the following and see if it helps:

Cannot search from IE6 Address Bar

Check the Registry to see if this file is there. Sometimes during removal of
hijackers or spyware, files in the Registry can get corrupted or removed as
well. If not, try adding this line to this part of the registry.
(watch for the wrap, it should be all on one line)
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\URLSearchHooks]"{CFBFAE00-17A6-11D0-99CB-00C04FD64497}"=""
Click to expand...

or…….

Restore default Search functions:

In order to restore you default Search functions, download and run the
program below. You will have to redo any customized features you may have
added afterward.
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/RestoreSearch2.REG

or....................

Courtesy of Tony Klein, MS MVP:
******************************************
This will restore the Windows defaults for a whole lot of Search related
registry entries.

CAUTION: BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY FIRST!

Close IE, copy the bold to Notepad, save as Search.reg (save as 'all files',
and doubleclick. Answer 'yes' when prompted to add the contents of
Search.reg to the Registry:

REGEDIT4 (Watch for the line wrap. Each one should be all on on line.)

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search]
"SearchAssistant"="http://ie.search.msn.com/{SUB_RFC1766}/srchasst/srchasst.
htm"
"CustomizeSearch"="http://ie.search.msn.com/{SUB_RFC1766}/srchasst/srchcust.
htm"
"Default_Search_URL"="http://www.microsoft.com/isapi/redir.dll?prd=ie&ar=ies
earch"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl]
""="http://home.microsoft.com/access/autosearch.asp?p=%s"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\main]
"Search Page"="http://www.microsoft.com/isapi/redir.dll?prd=ie&ar=iesearch"
"Search Bar"="http://search.msn.com/spbasic.htm"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\URLSearchHooks]
"{CFBFAE00-17A6-11D0-99CB-00C04FD64497}"=""

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\URL]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\URL]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\URL\DefaultPre
fix] @="http://"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\URL\Prefixes]"
ftp"="ftp://"
"gopher"="gopher://"
"home"="http://"
"mosaic"="http://"
"www"="http://
*******************************
or...

Repairs the corrupted or altered (spyware) HTTP prefixes
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/RepairDefaultPrefix.reg
to restore your search functions

Hope this helps.

Jan :)
MS MVP - Windows/Internet Explorer
Smiles are meant to be shared,
that's why they're so contagious.

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