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Bing Bar uninstall / install

Hello,

I installed a JRE update today, and got the new Bing Toolbar slammed onto my PC (I was not paying close enough attention).

Now I get the following odd problem when trying to remove (or overinstall) the Bing Toolbar -- in spite of me running as administrator:
MSN Toolbar Installer
"Installation requires administrator privileges. Please log in as an administrator and run Install Manager again."

As I said, this makes no sense as I *am* running as administrator. This is an XP Professional SP3 box w/ IE8 (fully patched).

Thoughts?

_RD

dinips

So you woke up one day, turned on your computer, and opened up your web browser to find that your home page had been changed to Bing.com. You’re outraged, annoyed, and frustrated. Don’t be. It’s a simple process to set it back to which ever search engine you prefer.

Before we start, I would like to explain to you how you’ve ended up with Bing instead of the search engine you are used to. Microsoft deployed a new version of Internet Explorer (IE8) over Windows Update, and by default it had its homepage set to Bing.com. This means that if you had it set to automatically install updates for you, or manually chose to upgrade, after you were done you had Bing.com set as your homepage. It is also possible that you were using Microsoft’s Live Search as your search engine which was replaced by Bing.

Now that we have that out of the way, here is how you set your homepage back to your prefered engine. For these examples I will be using Google however you are free to use you’re favourite.

Bing Removal - Step 2

First start up Internet Explorer, if your home page comes up as Bing.com immediately then you need to change the default engine. If you are only getting directed to Bing after searching from your search bar then skip to the next part of this guide.

Bing Removal - Step 3

Bing Removal - Step 4

On the main menu, select Tools and then Internet Options.

Bing Removal - Step 5

In the highlighted box you will see that your home page has been set to http://www.bing.com, simply change that to your desired engine and hit OK. Now if you need to change the default engine for your search bar, click the drop down arrow next to the magnifying glass and you should see Google in that drop down list. If not, you will have to hit “Find more providers…” and select it from the page you are presented with.

Alternate Method:

Since a few people have been unsuccessful with the method above I wanted to provide antoher method that will work on any browser. Open up My Computer and go to C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc and open the file hosts. It should ask what you want to use to open it, just select Notepad. Then add the bottom add:
view source
print?
1.74.125.127.100 www.bing.com
2.74.125.127.100 bing.com

Now save the file, and restart your web-browser if it is still running. Now when your browser tries to go to Bing.com it will be directed to Google instead.

That’s all there is to it, you are now free of Bing!

rdefuria

ASKER

That is different. I do not have Bing set as my default search provider, I have google.

The problem is that in Add/Remove programs I cannot run the MSN Toolbar uninstall without getting the error I listed above.

rdefuria

ASKER

Here's the error dialog:
MSN-Toolbar-install-error.JPG

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rdefuria

ASKER

I basically am always logged in as Local Administrator, tho. Odd.

rdefuria

ASKER

Although my account is in the Administrators group, after reading your comment I decided to actually login as Administrator. Well, that did it -- it's running now. Seems like the uninstaller has a hard-coded dependency on running as the actual "Admiinstrator" user versus anyone in the Administrators group? Anyway, thanks. Next time I will pay more attention when applying a Java patch/update to avoid getting unwanted software slammed onto my box.