Internet Explorer 7 Strange Behaviour

[JMI]

Has he updated IE7? The current version on WindowsXP is 7.0.5703.11.

My version is not modded and I've had absolutely no problem with it.

I saw someone reported the identical problem here, but no reply with a solution:

http://www.ureader.com/message/4056493.aspx

and here:

http://help.lockergnome.com/windows2/Issues-IEAK-ftopict483369.html

But see this page:

http://www.chcs.com/knowledgebase/article.cfm?aId=143

Here's something showing where M$ keeps the links for this process:

http://boards.cexx.org/index.php?topic=16501.msg67883

R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://www.comcast.net/
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Page_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Search_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157
R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Connection Wizard,ShellNext = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=74005

This particular report was about a Firewall problem and fixed with Hijack This.

CHECK THIS ONE FIRST!

Here's an apparent solution from the Systernals Forum:

http://forum.sysinternals.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=8576&PN=1

The search criteria I used was: fwlink/?LinkId=74005

Regards,