Help! deleted registry entry & now can't download!

[shelleybear]

I am new here and am so happy to find this board. I am hoping one of you knowledgeable people can help me out with a problem.
I printed a coupon and was told that to print another, I had to delete the website's entry in the registry. Well, greedy me, I wasn't able to print another and besides that I think I messed up my registry. Now I can't download anything at all. When I try, I get an error screen saying that IE cannot open the webpage. I am hoping that you will kindly give me some advice in very simple terms on what to go or where to look for help. I've learned my lesson: Don't mess around with your registry if you don't know what you are doing! TIA
Shelley

[TonyKlein]

Hello,

Boot to a MS-DOS command prompt, and type scanreg /restore.
Choose a registry backup from before this happened.

Good luck, Tony

[shelleybear]

Thanks for the tip, Tony. When I tried to choose a registry backup before the problem started, I could only find the last 5 days (til Oct 30) listed and my problem began Oct 25. Is there any way to get at the registry backups from that far in the past?

[coolsights2000]

I'm not sure if IE 5 had a rebuild command but if you have IE 6.0 it has a rebuild command you get to it just like if you were going to uninstall a program when you click on uninstall another windows pops up that gives you the option to rebuild IE......

Thanks
Mac!!!

This Is just my opinion
So if it stinks wait for another one
Cause I'm no expert

[shelleybear]

Hi Mac,
Thanks for your suggestion. I was running IE 6, but I didn't have the slightest idea how to rebuild it. So I opted for the other choice, uninstalling IE 6 and returning to my previous version (IE 5.5). It sounded good, but it didn't fix my problem. I still can't download anything.
I think it may have something to do with the ActiveX. Over at PCPitstop.com, the ActiveX diagnostic check says mine isn't working, even though it is enabled. Here's what happened the last time I downloaded :
Went to a website (Brightstreet) to print out a coupon.
I clicked on "yes" to a prompt for an ActiveX plug-in
I downloaded & printed the coupon
Then I went to regedit and (without having any idea what I was doing) found a Brightstreet entry under, I think, HKEY-USER, & deleted it.

Since then, I haven't been able to download.
Could it be that when I deleted the registry file it wiped out ActiveX?
Any ideas what to try next?

Thanks guys for the help. This is very educational.
Shelley

[billydee]

Try the IE Repair ("rebuild") Tool:
<a target="_blank" href=http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q194/1/77.asp>Description of the Internet Explorer Repair Tool</a>

This advice is free.
You might only get what you paid for.

[coolsights2000]

here is where to get the Direct-X

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?releaseid=27741&area=top&ordinal=3

Thanks
Mac!!!

This Is just my opinion
So if it stinks wait for another one
Cause I'm no expert

[reghakr]

I never liked site such as pcpitstop and their ActiveX controls. in Internet Explorer, go to Tools&gt;Internet Options, click the Settings button, then the View Objects button. Right-click on each and choose Remove. Then navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Code Store Database

and remove leftover remnants under these keys.

If that doesn't do it, maybe you'll find something here:

<a target="_blank" href=http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q188/8/39.ASP>Err Msg: Internet Explorer Cannot Open the Internet Site</a>

<a target="_blank" href=http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q177/4/86.ASP>Err Msg: Internet Explorer Cannot Open the Internet Site</a>

<a target="_blank" href=http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q189/0/57.ASP>Err Msg: Internet Explorer Cannot Open the Site &lt;Web Address&gt;</a>

reghakr