How to disable third-party download managers?
Published: July 09, 2004Send your feedback
Symptoms
Sometimes, a download manager may interrupt the normal Internet Explorer behavior. This is especially true when you uninstall a download manager and the residual entries causing the following problems:
- Nothing happens when you click "Save Target As"
- Nothing happens when you click on a file download URL
- Red X mark appears in place of Images
Disabling third-party download managers if the usual ways do not help.
Download managers can be implemented as anything, in the form of a Browser Helper Object, DownloadUI handler or through Name-Space Handler - Protocols, and at the application level. A background application can also act as a download manager, without involving it's hooks into Internet Explorer. Therefore, there is no standard method to disable a download manager.
First disable the application itself. If that does not help, download ToolbarCop and inspect the following object types to know where the download manager has attached it's hooks to Internet Explorer:
- Browser Helper Object
- Download Handler
- Name-Space HTTP/FTP/HTTPS
One of the entries may be the download manager's hook. Disable or delete the entry using ToolbarCop.
