pardon me for being a computer dumbass but i went to your link. it says i am suppose to find a “key” that says “homepage.” i have looked and looked and i can not find it.
it even gives an example of what it looks like and i still can’t find it.
Hmm, ok, it’s probably not you doing anything wrong, I think the homepage key would only be there if the scumware had added it (i.e. nothing there means it is not disabled in that particular way).
As NutWrench suggests, there are other ways of doing it.
I’ve just found what it is!
Ok, it is just scumware, nothing more sinister (I know you never thought it was, but I wasn’t convinced before because I’d seen viruses that changed the homepage).
To fix it, you need to do what this page says.
In case you’re interested, this is where I found the info about it. Looks like it might be an idea to download all the latest security patches from Micro$oft.
I hope this sorts it!
I just finished running AdAware with the RefUpdate installed and found 40 entries for DAP (Dowload Accelerator Plus). I was not aware that this program was a spyware program. What gives?
Yep, both Download Accelerator and Gozilla come with it. You have to be really careful these days, you can get it from just visiting a webpage if your settings are open enough… and of course, if you tighten your security you miss out on other innocent stuff on pages. It sucks.
I like DAP, but if it is spyware, perhaps I should get rid of it. What say ye Racer1?
Well, I guess it’s a balance between how much you like DAP and how much the scumware pisses you off.
If you want a full report on what scumware actually does, do check out Scumware.com.
Personally, I got rid of DAP when I heard, but then the idea of my bandwidth and computer resources being wasted on a load of crappy adverts really got my goat :mad:
I haven’t heard of GetRight installing anything sinister, but it would probably be worth a google search to be sure.
Star Downloader is a nice freeware download accelerator that can do multi-part downloads, too. No Ad-ware or Spyware! 
we back in bidness, we back in bidness…
thank you racer, thank you. mission accomplished. home page setting is once again enabled. first time i have ever messed with my register, you have unleased a monster!
the saunders guy mentioned there still could be hidden programs in start up that may cause it to change again. i have a bunch of crap in there i don’t know what they are. one says “hidserv,” any idea what that is?
p.s. where do i send the check, hahaha…
Thanks Racer1… I just got rid of the DAP offenders. They were only listed as suspicious offenders, but that was enough for me. I am not sure that DAP was that effective for downloads anyway.
Be careful with free filesharing programs such as Limewire which is a Gnutella network program.
This loads spyware onto your system, I used Ad-adware which informed me of the spyware elements and used it to remove them, however I found that Limewire itself would no longer run, and the downloaded Java would not run either, so I had to uninstall those too.
I find this site http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.htm useful when checking tasks in my startup routine (thanks Lockfist from this thread http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=104847). It says that “hidserv” is:
This is the Human Interface Device Server for Win98SE/2000/Me/XP, it is required only if you are using
USB Audio Devices you can disable via Msconfig. See here. Typical examples are USB mulitmedia keyboards with volume control and web-ready keyboards. For example - loaded by default with MS DSS80 Speakers because they have Volume, Mute and Bass controls on the speaker. Some users may experience problems disabling this - if this is the case then re-enable it. Equivalent to MMHid in Win98
Hope this helps.
;j