Hello I've joined the forum for the express purpose of thanking you all for giving us the fix to this situation. This problem has been p***ing us off ever since a 'not specifically denied' automatic update to IE (7.0.5346.5 Beta 2) presented itself for approval. (Denied). But 1 restore point and 2 new DWORDS later and we're BAU. Thanks to all. rapato wollongong Australia