ie7b3 won't allow home page change

The title says the problem. I have (finally) made a successful install of IE7b3 (installed in safe mode with networking) on this wXPproSP2 PC. But although I go to internet options (and its alias under "tools" in IE), and set the home page to "http://www.google.com ", IE 7b3 must have a hidden script resetting the home page to
http://www.microsoft.com/isapi/redir.dll?prd=ie&pver=6&ar=msnhome

you can see what is happening, the home page is redirected to msn home & made the default home page no matter what. How can I permanently disable this "feature" or should I go back to IE 6? Thanks.

 

If you have Zone Alarm firewall, the recent versions 6.5.xxx have a new feature: they lock the first home page in IE 7 (same registry key as the home page for IE6. In the free version there is unfortunately no option to unlock (there is in the pro version). This is not documented in the release notes and I've lost count of the number of people on various forums who have been caught out by this.
If you have ZA free v6.5.xxx, do the following: in ZA, set it not to load on startup, shut down ZA, restart your PC. If connecting to the internet, make sure the XP firewall is on. You can now change the first home page in IE. Then restart ZA from start/programs, reset it to load at startup.
An alternative is to start in safe mode (when ZA's services are not loaded), and change the home page.

Other apps that have an option to lock home page include Spybot, Spywareblaster, some AV apps.

 

Thanks, guys. I went to safemode per advice. It was spybot (ZA personal free was the latest, but it didn't seem to affect this, but spybot sent up a dialog on regular mode reopen).