added in menu ‘tools’ (IE 5.5)

Topic

New Reply

how I can delete an option of my menu “tools”, it were added after to have opened a page?

Reply | Quote

Replies

Can you explain what you mean ?
Do you mean something other than the normal Tools option as below?

Reply | Quote

Yes, (see the image)

Reply | Quote

(Q258657) – suggests how one might go about adding missing items to the tools bar in Internet Explorer. The fix entails editing your registry. It stands to reason that if this is the process to add missing items, the same process might be used to remove an item.

You might do a search in your registry by:

clicking START, RUN…
type REGEDIT, hit RETURN.

within regedit, you can click on EDIT, FIND…

type in “??? ??? ???” then hit ENTER.

The system will peruse the registry looking for a key with this text. Once you find it, you could remove it, but this is quite bizarre, and might be a symptom of a greater problem. Removing this item from your registry will likely cure the problem, but likely won’t remove whatever put that item there in the first place.

IF you decide to remove it, please make sure you backup your registry first. Minor changes like this can have drastic effects on the performance of your system, and you can’t undo whatever you’ve done unless you back everything up first.

Click on REGISTRY then EXPORT REGISTRY FILE…
I’d recommend saving this file to my docs or another location which you can easily remember.

You can try removing the key to see if the symptom disappears, but I would recommend a re-installation of Internet Explorer. It’s hard to say what caused this to appear, but it may have other ramifications within the system.

Hope this helps!

Reply | Quote

Holy mackerel! Maybe you should disable ActiveX controls or at least set them to prompt. Maybe active scripting as well. What else did that page do to your system? I am increasingly amazed and alarmed at the “openness” of Internet Explorer… thank goodness we bar ActiveX downloads at the firewall.

Reply | Quote

Hi,
If you mean that a new item has been added on the Tools menu dropdown list, then I think the only way to get rid of it is by removing the relevant key from HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerExtensions in the registry.
All the usual warnings apply if you are going to do this – I’d certainly recommend exporting any key you’re going to delete so that you can import it back if necessary.
Hope that helps.

Reply | Quote

The *easy* way is to hit View/Toolbars/Customize and then find the button you want to remove in the list on the right and click Remove.

Reply | Quote

Eh, but that is not a button… ;-]

You may be able to locate the entry by searching the registry for “???…” – or maybe not. Regardless, all of the added IE Tools entries will be listed here in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerExtensions

Each entry will have a key (folder) with a long series of numbers in braces as it’s ‘name’. Generally, if you click on the correct folder, it will have a “Menu Text” value with the ???’s as its data. Delete the entire folder (after backing it up) and the entry will be gone.

Reply | Quote

Oops, I was looking at the Toolbar instead of the Menu.

Reply | Quote

Doesn’t View|Toolbars|Customize and then do the trick ?

Reply | Quote

I think that would reset the ToolBar only — not the drop down menus. The “Tools” drop down menus are controlled in the registry — where I have indicated above. I have added and subtracted many entries over the past several years…

Jeff — I would not suspect ActiveX in this case, but instead Active Scripting. Make sure that site is in the Restricted sites zone — and of course, I recommend a more “Disabled” Internet zone for everyone…

Reply | Quote

Mmmm… yes, it could be a script writing to the Registry (Adding Menu Items). This must be done, though, through another object, such as the Windows Script Host. WSH should be marked “unsafe for scripting,” and therefore an effective way to prevent a script from accessing it would be to lock off WSH and other dangerous controls by disabling ActiveX controls deemed “unsafe for scripting.” You could go further, of course, but that functionality/security trade-off cuts more deeply.

Reply | Quote