Article ID: 298931 - Last Review: September 4, 2008 - Revision: 6.3

How to disable third-party tool bands and Browser Helper Objects

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This article was previously published under Q298931

SUMMARY

This article describes the steps to disable the third-party tool bands and Browser Helper Objects that you installed for use with Internet Explorer. You may have to disable these features when you have to troubleshoot Internet Explorer problems.

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MORE INFORMATION

Guided Help to disable third-party tool bands and Browser Helper Objects

Guided Help is available to disable third-party tool bands and Browser Helper Objects. Guided Help can guide you through the steps or Guided Help can automatically perform the steps for you.

The actions that this Guided Help performs can be undone after Guided Help is finished. To undo this Guided Help, run Guided Help again. On the Welcome page, click Undo this Guided Help, and then follow the instructions.

For more information about Guided Help, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

915092 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/915092/ ) Description of Guided Help for Microsoft Knowledge Base articles

Requirements to install and to use this Guided Help

You must be logged on to Windows by using a computer administrator account to install this Guided Help.
You must be running Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Media Center Edition, or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition to install and to use this Guided Help.

You must first download Guided Help. To start, click the following link:

Download Guided Help

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/298931/ )

Manual steps to disable third-party tool bands and Browser Helper Objects

To manually disable the tool bands and Browser Helper Objects, follow these steps:

Close all instances of Internet Explorer, click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
Double-click Internet Options.
Click the Advanced tab.
Under Browsing, click to clear the Enable third-party browser extensions (requires restart) check box.
Restart Internet Explorer.

These steps change the value data for the "Enable Browser Extensions" string value to "No" in the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

A tool band is a band object that was introduced with Internet Explorer 5 to support the Radio Toolbar feature. This feature can put a window on a band that is contained by the Rebar control that holds the toolbars in Internet Explorer. For additional information about tool bands, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc144099(VS.85).aspx (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc144099(VS.85).aspx)

Browser Helper Objects are Component Object Model (COM) components that Internet Explorer loads whenever it starts. These objects run in the same memory context as the browser and they can perform any action on the available windows and modules. For developer information about Browser Helper Objects, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Bb250436.aspx (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Bb250436.aspx)

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