Media center 2005 loading two screens

[csaron01]

My media center crash a few months ago. Took it to Staples IT's tried a clean sweep of the hard drive, I still had to a full recovery to get it half way loading right, now it loads a blank screen behind one that's loading a webpage. Icon's stall when loading. Using IE 7
Java and flash are updated windows XP Pro sp2.
If someone could please, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

 

[Saga Lout]

Hello and welcome to Tom's Hardware Forums.

When you reinstalled, do dyou update to the latest Service Pack 3 and nearly a hundred subsequent updates? That will include IE8 which might help matters but you probably have something automatically starting when you boot up.

Try booting into Safe Mode with networking by tapping your Function 8 key before Windows starts to load then from Start go to Run and type msconfig into the open box and hit Enter. Click the StartUp tab and untick everything except your anti virus and firewall. Click Apply and OK then when prompted, click Exit without restart. Go into Control Panel>Automatic Updates and click on the Windows Update Website link and accept the ActiveX download. You'll then wait some time to be told which updates you need so download them all, restart into Normal Mode and let them install.

 

[csaron01]

I followed your advice Ie 8 installed all updates, appears it helped some, I still have the second webpage screen. The only program that restarts itself in msconfig is ctfmon.

 

[Saga Lout]

How about SP3 and all the other updates? Do you see your Homepage in IE as the second screen? Could you have a blank Homepage set in Internet Options?

 

[csaron01]

Yes, sp3 and updates included. The homepage yes, when restarting the system bootup, the welcome screen comes up, then just for a second another screen with the microsoft logo with windows is starting appears then disappears, everything appears to be running normal except for the logo screens and webpage screens. Any webpage loaded, loads twice.

 

[csaron01]

No home set in Ie options, only use yahoo. Throught maybe ie might be the problem, download chrome, it did the same thing as ie.

 

[Saga Lout]

That would seem to point to something amiss in Control Panel>Internet Options.

 

[csaron01]

There is, when I use the default home page on ie, http://ie.redirect.hp.com/svs/rdr?TYPE=3&tp=iehome&locale=EN_US&c=Q106&bd=pavilion&pf=desktop, it loads Aol trial as the homepage, I assum this is the second webpage, not sure. I've never used aol on this computer, aol is a virus, my opinion.
I can't find aol in the control panel add/remove. Any ideal how to remove this peice of junk.

 

[Saga Lout]

There may be a folder named AOL in your Documents and Settings>{yourname}>Application Data folder or maybe Local Settings><Application Data which you can safely delete but if all you're seeing related to AOL is in the homepage settings, change that to something completely different. It's probably HP trying to persuade you to look at AOL's advertising content on some sort of commission basis or other.

In Internet Options>General tab, delete the entry for HP and the redirect will stop. Choose something of your own - MSN perhaps. Click Apply and OK then restart IE and you should see no more of AOL.

 

[csaron01]

I couldn't find aol, but the screen after following your advice in internet options seems to had stopped the second screen. I hope this fixed the problem, thank you so much for your help. It is greatly appreciated.

 

[Saga Lout]

You're very welcome. I hope it remains fixed.