The More You Know

For corporate users, your company may or may not enforce a start page that you do not agree with. Be it company news or a slow loading flash application that makes your slow corporate laptop cry in pain. For some, just changing the start page in the IE properties dialogue is enough. However, for those who have it reset on them whenever they logon/startup, it is an annoyance.

There are many solutions to this problem. The most elegant using startup scripts that just set the value each time. Another would be to use FireFox, but too many companies do not even allow that (mine does!). Also, if you are an unprivileged user these solutions may not be available to you. What you can do is create a new shortcut that forces your home page.

• Find the IE executable (C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE). If you run into permission problems right click and drag to a directory where you have write permissions. Upon releasing the right button, chose create shortcut.
• Right click it and choose Create Shortcut.
• Copy the short cut to wherever you want to use it and possibly rename it.
• Right click the shortcut and choose properties
• You should see the line: “C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE”
• Change that to “C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE” http://www.myFavoriteSite.com
  Another alternative is: “C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE” about:blank
  Which is what I prefer as it is has zero load time and lets me choose where I want to spend my load time. Go saving 3 seconds!