I’ve been encountering an annoying ActiveX message on my computer. It seems to come up only when i’m using the Help feature in programs like MS Word or Access. Those Help files seem to use Explorer, and when i navigate to a new page, i get a pop-up box with the following message:
I click “Yes” and everything seems to work fine, but as soon as i want to go to another page it happens again, which is very annoying when i’m navigating through a whole bunch of help pages.
I tried Googling this problem, and got a whole lot of hits for the error message, but i couldn’t find anything that referred to my specific problem, and nor could i find anything that tells me how to get rid of it.
The Microsoft website has a bunch of stuff about ActiveX, but much of that is in pages that also make reference to C++. I’m not a programmer, and i don’t understand this stuff. The closest thing i found to my problem was this page, but even then it is talking about actual Office documents, not the Help file. It also directed me to this page, but the stuff there is too complicated for me.
If i can’t get rid of this annoyance, it won’t be the end of the world, but if anyone can help me i’d be most grateful.
I’m running XP Home and Office Pro 2000 (but the message also appears in the Help files of some non-MS programs).
In Internet Explorer, you should be able to go to the “tools” menu, select “internet optiosn” and go to the “security” tab and set all your ActiveX contols to allow everything. It sounds like something is set to “prompt” rather than “enable”. You will of course run a much greater risk of getting viruses and such by doing so.
I would seriously advise against lowering your ActiveX permissions to allow any website to run programs on your computer. This doesn’t just open the door to spyware, it turns on the redlight, puts on a latex miniskirt and fishnet stockings, and says, “Hey big boy, come in here and give me a case of the CoolWebSearch Clap.”
That ‘error message’ is a good thing. Unless you are getting these messages on websites you trust, you are better off denying their request to run programs on your computer. Better to set ActiveX to ‘disabled’ in the internet zone, and allow it only for websites you have put in the ‘trusted zone’ of IE. That way, online banking will work, but CrapwareRus won’t.
I would prefer not to lower my security settings, but it does seem silly that i can’t change it for those particular Help files without lowering security across the board.
Is this happening because the computer is contacting the internet whenever i use the Help files? Because i was always under the impression that those Help files resided on my local computer and did not require internet access.
Also, regarding changing my ActiveX settings: does it make any difference that i don’t use IE for regular web browsing (i use Firefox), and that my computer has both a router and a software firewall between it and the internet?