How can I change IE's homepage without opening IE?

Question

Here's an interesting problem. On a recently installed Server 2008 64bit I opened IE and through the Tools -> Options I changed the homepage to iGoogle.com. Clicked okay and then clicked the homepage button. IE crashes.

Now you'd think that I could just remove iGoogle as the homepage but when I open IE it immediately goes to that page and crashes on open.

Obviously I'd prefer to find a solution to why IE is crashing on the iGoogle page but just to get IE running again I need to remove iGoogle as the homepage. Is there anyway to do this without opening IE?

Answer 1

Control Panel -> Internet Options

Answer 2

In Vista and XP the same screen can be accessed via Control Panel -> Internet Options... does Server 2008 64bit have the same menu?

Answer 3

Looking at the registry, the start page seems to be stored in

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page

Answer 4

You could do it through the control panel, but you could also supply a url as a parameter to iexplore.exe.

start » run » iexplore about:blank

Answer 5

Not sure about IE7 on Windows Server 2008, but for IE6 the start page is stored in a registry key "Start Page" in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main.

Answer 6

Two ways:

1. Control Panel->Internet Options
2. Start->Run... "%windir%\system32\inetcpl.cpl"

Answer 7

The answer is posted, but here's how you can discover the answer without having to ask
1: Set the homepage to something random ie FindMeKeyForURL.com
2: Search the registry for it
3: Extract it out and modify it, now you can deploy the .reg file

Answer 8

you could always go offline and change it :P

Answer 9

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page This was very good tip, even I usually go to Regedit only if something is really bothering but in this IE homepage setup I didn't think that I need to go Regedit but never say never

Thanks again,

Br, C