error message when loading IE7

nellie43 · November 24th, 2007, 09:50 AM

Hello, I would like to introduce myself and take the opportunity to ask a question When I attempt to load IE7, I get an error message, cannot find 'file:///C:/program%20files/aol%20toolbar/welcome.html.' I click OK and then get the same message, I click OK again and IE7 starts to load, unfortunately msn.com (which I have set as my home page) isn't in the address bar and I have to type it in myself and msn.com then loads. I would very much welcome your help.nellie43

CujoRbd · November 25th, 2007, 12:02 AM

welcome to TIMO...

u have AOL installed still, or have you uninstalled it? If this is Windows XP, look in the Add/Remove Programs control panel for something called "AOL Toolbar" and uninstall it, make sure to restart the computer and hopefully it will go away. for Vista, look in the Programs and Features control panel to remove the program.

if you don't use AOL, make sure to uninstall anything that says AOL or America Online in the control panel. again, make sure to restart the system before trying it.

you may also have to manually set the start page in the Registry. go to Start->Run, type in "regedit" and then click OK. navigate to and then highlight the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
look for the value on the right called "Start Page" and change it to whatever website you choose. Also take a look at the value called "Local Page" as this should say "C:\Windows\system32\blank.htm"

also, another suggestion would be to use a different web browser. there are many out there, so you can do a search and compare how they work if you like. I use either Firefox or Opera. I think Netscape Navigator is still out there, and like I said there are others. Apple even recently released it's Safari browser for windows, but I think it's still in beta testing.

Hope this helps!

nellie43 · November 25th, 2007, 03:22 AM

Thank you very much CujoRbd for your speedy response. I still have AOL installed, it's my ISP.nellie43

CujoRbd · November 26th, 2007, 01:19 AM

well ok... that makes it interesting. you could consider uninstalling all AOL products, then restarting the system, then re-installing, but that sounds like it wouldn't be very fun. has this always happened or did it recently start? if it's always happened, then it could be an incomplete install of AOL. if it's recently started, then something has messed up the virus that we call the AOL program. if this is the case, is there anything that you can identify that would have caused this, including any recent changes to the system?

you might be able to just disable to the AOL toolbar add-on. once IE is open and you have gone to a website, like msn or whatever, go to Tools->Manage Add-ons. look for the AOL toolbar and then click the disable option and then click OK. you'll have to close out of IE and then open it back up to make this take effect, but likely you'll have to close out and then restart the computer first.

you could also use another browser instead of IE.

you could also try putting a "welcome.html" file in that location and make it auto-forward to your home page of choice. you could do this by opening a text editor like notepad and putting the following code into it:

Code:

<HTML><head><meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=http://www.msn.com/"></head></HTML>

then save the file as "welcome.html" (you have to put in the quotes in notepad or else it'll add .txt to the end of the file name) into the following directory:
C:\Program Files\AOL Toolbar\
If no AOL Toolbar folder is there, just make one yourself.

nellie43 · November 28th, 2007, 11:57 AM

CujoRbd, thank you for the help, your second suggestion about making a welcome html file, was the one that solved the problem. Everything is fine now, your help was very much appreciated....nellie43

ally_1704 · January 10th, 2008, 02:23 PM

i am having the same problem, but it says that im am not authorised to save the "welcome.html" ti that location
Please help!

theirah · February 15th, 2008, 09:39 PM

try opening notepad by right-clicking it and choosing "run as administrator"

nellie43 · February 16th, 2008, 08:43 AM

Thank you for your offer of help theirah, the problem has been solved by members above. I appreciate your offer of help....nellie43

poisoneyes · May 27th, 2008, 07:09 AM

i was having the same problem as nellie43 and i followed the steps about making the welcome html file to solve it, and the error message is gone, but now i have a new problem. when i open up IE, i'll get it to open to the homepage i've selected, but i get an additional page that pops up with it. it's a blank page with the url: C:\Program Files\AOL Toolbar\welcome.html and i don't know how to make it disappear. also, i cannot open another window, it will erase the one i had open for my homepage and pull up the blank page again. it's more annoying to have to deal with that each time than the double error message. is there anyway to make it go away for good? did i do something wrong?

simonduff1 · June 27th, 2008, 07:53 AM

This was posted some while ago & it worked a charm for me so why not try...

This is a bug in the installation of the AOL Toolbar (why the moron’s at AOL can’t seem to fix it is beyond me since they are now at version 5.0 of the toolbar and the error started much earlier).

Look for the registry entry under key:
My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Int ernet Explorer\Main
The entry for “First Home Page” is set to the (non-existant) AOL welcome file. Just change this to your real home page (or the blank page) and the problem goes away. (If someone knows of an easier fix - let us know)

The problem is that the link is wrong and there is no such welcome file.