The Searchpage.html Bug

The seachpage.html bug sucks. I had it sometime back in 2004 when I was still using Internet Explorer. Anyway, it took me months to get rid of the bug, but when I found out how, I put together this write up. It's from a while ago, but I thought it might be useful for anyone looking for a solution to the same problem...



There's a handful of people out there who have seen the crappy and now famed "searchpage.html" bug. For those of you who haven't, it is simply a page that completely takes over Internet Explorer's (in my situation) home page default. When you change the default, it changes back to the searchpage file. When you delete the searchpage file, it changes back to the searchpage file. When you use various spyware removal programs, it changes back to the searchpage file.

Get it? This thing sucks!!

I've had the damn thing for about 2 months. After checking out loads of forums and toying around with various spyware programs, I still couldn't get the bug to leave. Finally, yesteray afternoon, I gathered up enough courage to hop on the forums again looking for anyone else who might have had the problem. Thanks to someone's brief but well detailed post, I was able to solve the searchpage problem in a similar fashion!! (and celebration followed)

There were a few minor differences between the poster's files and my files, but I guess the similarities were close enough that my problem was eliminated. Here were the steps I followed to remove the lingering searchpage.html file:



1. First I renamed about 14 dll files by adding a character to their name. In the post, the following 15 files were renamed, so I did a search in the C:windowssystem32 directory for a few of these files. Next I did a time search for the day these files were created to get a list of 14 dlls. (some of which didn't match the files in the post) The files were:

1. mtwcnl32.dll
2. mtwirl.dll
3. nthst32.dll
4. cidft.dll
5. cidpoq.dll
6. gupd.dll
7. icqrt.dll
8. icnfe.dll
9. icvbr.dll
10. mtjpgb.dll
11. mtjpgh.dll
12. sdfup.dll
13. wecxg32.dll
14. xcwer32.dll
15. zxmsn.dll

2. Next I changed the name of one exe file. Again, I only had one of the two exe files mentioned in the post. The post listed the following two:

1. RUNDLL32.EXE-3b364F86.pf
2. REGSVR32.EXE-396DEA2C.pf

3. After this, I deleted the searchpage.html file from C: after doing a search for it.

4. Next I searched for "searchpage.html" in the software section of the registry, and deleted all instances refering to the file.

5. In Internet Explorer, I changed the default homepage from "searchpage.html" to my prefered search page.

6. I reset my computer after this.

7. Finally, I ran Lavasoft's Adaware 6.0 to remove any other bugs floating around.

After one more reset to ensure adequate testing, I opened Internet Explorer and found it to be free of the searchpage bug! Hopefully these instructions will bring someone else the joy of removing this crappy bug.