Toolbars are locked - Unable to customize toolbar and tool band
Published: Nov 19, 2004Updated : Aug 19, 2005
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Symptoms
When you right-click the standard toolbar in Internet Explorer, the Customize option is missing, and the toolbar options are grayed-out as seen in the picture. This is due to the restrictions set in the registry.
Resolution
- Click Start, Run and type Regedit.exe.
- Navigate to the following locations one by one:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer
and
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer
- In the right-pane, delete these two values (if exists)
- NoBandCustomize
- NoToolbarCustomize
This restores the missing Customize option.
Related Tip
To remove All the browser restrictions, download and apply this REG fix. Open the fix using Notepad in case you want to view the contents.
More Information
If the above restrictions have been applied without your knowledge, this may be caused by a third-party program (such as tweak programs or toolbars) that you've installed. Another possibility is the iSearch toolbar. iSearch locks the toolbars and disables the standard Search button in Internet Explorer. You'll see a blank left pane after clicking the Search button in Internet Explorer. It also adds a "IE Toolbar search" context menu in Internet Explorer. You may also see an error-report in module Toolbar.dll while opening Internet Explorer. [image 1] [image 2]
To uninstall iSearch, use the Add/Remove Programs, or see the Program's documentation. If the uninstall instructions are not available to you, then you need to remove them manually. Locate the file Toolbar.dll in your system and unregister it using the "Regsvr32 /u toolbar.dll" command from the directory where Toolbar.dll resides. This unlocks the the toolbars and uninstalls iSearch.
If that's not the case, then it's a good idea to scan and eliminate Malware from the system. Quick-Removal of a third-party toolbar or browser extensions, you may use Toolbarcop.